


A Dimensional Shift in Perspective

by ReturningWriter



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Adopted Children, Angst, Angst and Feels, BAMF Lena Luthor, Badass Mofo Lena, Bisexual Lena Luthor, Cameos, Daddy Lena Luthor, Domestic Bliss, Drama, Drama & Romance, Empowered Kara, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fights, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, I am Supercorp Trash, Idiots in Love, Kara Danvers Needs a Hug, Kara Danvers is a Tease, Kryptonian Kara Danvers, Lena Luthor Finds Out Kara Danvers is Supergirl, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Minor Alex Danvers/Kelly Olsen, POV Kara Danvers, POV Lena Luthor, Past Tense, Red Kryptonite Kara Danvers, Shameless Smut, Slow Burn Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Therapy, What Have I Done, somewhat slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 108,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22560892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReturningWriter/pseuds/ReturningWriter
Summary: Set somewhere in Season 4, Kara and Lena are still friends, Lex hasn’t messed things up yet, but Lena is still clueless about a certain secret identity. Then thanks to a small dimensional mishap, Kara runs into her doppelgänger from another universe where things are a bit different. In fact, they are very pleasantly different and it causes a shift in her way of thinking about her Lena which in turn leads to a confrontation on top of the L-Corp building.Come join us as Kara's life and love life spins out of control after a single brush with how things could be, her secrets and fears get exposed as Lena demands answers.Lena herself must also rise above her fears and overcome the darkness she fears lies in her soul. High drama and a good dose of angst that then will transition into a slow-burning story of our idiots finding each other again.Someone in the SuperCorp Instagram community actually asked for a story that starts like this one, so here it is.This is going to be angsty, but the sun will come out eventually.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers & Kate Kane, Kara Danvers & Nia Nal, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Lena Luthor & Nia Nal, Querl Dox/Nia Nal
Comments: 378
Kudos: 464





	1. Truth Must Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, it seems like I'm exploring the theme of Kara coming out to Lena in my last couple of stories. This chapter starts out cute and fun but ends up rather angsty. See you again in the endnotes!

It had been a perfectly regular day for Kara Danvers, running down a lead for a story she was working on, texting with Lena and not worrying about an evil clone of herself somewhere out in the world. That was until about five minutes ago and now she was flying to the site of an explosion that had rocked National City. In the distance, by focusing her enhanced vision, she could see that people were running for their lives and in her ear, Alex was filling her in on what had happened. The short of it was that at a lab working in the field of trans-dimensional physics, there had been a minor mishap. The minor mishap had leveled the lab, and in its wake, a small portal had formed with all sorts of creatures pouring out of it and they were now rampaging around the ruins of the lab.

Landing outside the ruined lab she had little time to assess the situation as she grabbed what looked like a mutated vaguely humanoid pile of rocks as it came lunging at her and slammed it to the ground before it could hurt anyone. The lab was in total ruin and disarray with people running everywhere and in the center of the explosion stood a blue glowing portal with more and more weird and terrifying creatures pouring from its depths.

“Not good,” she grunted and what looked like a swarm of killer bees but made of metal poured from the portal leaving her no choice but to heat-vision them to ash. 

“Alex, what is this thing? It looks like that evil wormhole which is not good!” she demanded as she dodged a lumbering tree-like creature that growled and swung its branches for arms at her.

“Working on it but we’re getting a lot of interference and Brainy is trying to remotely shut the portal down so just keep whatever is coming out of that thing from getting away,” her sister shouted in her ear and she grunted her acknowledgment after taking a blow to the chin before she threw an upper-cut at the towering tree-being.

The force of her blow splintered the creature but made her knuckles hurt which either meant magic or that these things were very strong. Neither option was a good one. One dimensional monster down, a horde of them more to go, she thought as she checked her nose for blood before wading into the fray again. It looked to be mostly elemental beings of all shapes and sizes that swarmed around her. A few well-placed heat-vision blasts drove a few of them back, but the rocky ones seemed immune and three of them landed solid hits on her that forced the wind from her lungs. 

“Alex...” she grunted but was met by only static as she squared up again with her fists raised, blocking and dodging to get her wind back while using her heat-vision to maintain distance.

Evading the swarming creatures only worked for so long and after another lucky blow to her temple, a group of them managed to swarm her. Forcing her down to one knee despite her best efforts. But before she could get back up to continue the fight a flash of light blinded her for a moment and when she could see again a near mirror image of herself was offering her a hand.

“You okay?” her doppelgänger, in a blue suit with wait were those pants, asked and she nodded in confusion. 

Running a quick check on her other self while the world felt very blurry at the same time and it was like looking into the future. Her look-a-like wore a blue suit, which was good, and it didn’t look overtly evil, nor did she sport any overtly fascist or totalitarian symbols, which was even better. The main difference was the pants and a much shorter haircut a bit like Kate’s when her cowl was off and her alter-self was distinctly more muscular as well. But she was a bit burned out on running into clones and alternate versions of herself, so her response was less than thrilled.

“Oh great, another Supergirl,” she muttered before she could come up with a more polite reply and took the offered hand.

“So, you’re used to this sort of thing, good! I’m here to help and so is she,” her alternative self said cheerfully, then there was the blast of lasers followed by the whirring of jets and someone wearing a green and purple power-suit landed next to them.

“Not sure I can handle having two of you around at once darling,” a familiar voice said from behind a helmet with a green visor before it dematerialized revealing Lena, but this wasn’t her Lena. This one wore her jet-black hair, with one silver grey streak running through it, in a messy ponytail and had no make-up on to speak off and looked happier somehow then her friend usually did. 

“Uh, what’s going on?” she asked as her doppelgänger hauled her to her feet while the newly arrived Lena blasted a few more elemental beasts back with a pair of wrist-mounted green lasers.

“As I said, we’re here to help… since we kinda caused this,” her doppelgänger apologized sheepishly as the armor-wearing Lena started tapping at a console on her wrist with a green hologram appearing in front of them that was displaying analytical data and metrics on the portal.

“Yeah, that was my bad. Darling, please round these lost Elementals up will you? I'll keep your counterpart safe," the armored Lena asked, and her doppelgänger nodded before speeding off with a smile on her face.

“Okay, who are you two?” she asked still confused and a bit loopy after being punched in the face a few times. Coming face to face with a short-haired version of herself didn’t help things either.

“I’m Lena Kieran... Luthor and that big blue badass out there is Kara Zor-El but you already knew that. We’re from a dimension roughly sixty-nine degrees of the dimensional median curve,” Lena but not her Lena explained while speaking fast and the portal started pulsating to whatever it was the woman was doing. 

“Oookay…” she mumbled and shook her head to try to clear cobwebs from the blows she’d taken but clearly this version of Lena knew that Supergirl was Kara Danvers.

“I should help,” she declared and tried to fly but the blows had been heavy ones so trying to fly made her head spin.

“We’ve got this, just get your breath back darling. You’re suffering from the proximity to your other self and it will take a moment to adjust. But I have to admit seeing you makes me miss the skirt,” Lena commented with a wink and kept tapping away at the console on her wrist while her doppelgänger fought back the various rock, fire, plant and water elementals that had poured out of the portal.

“Thanks… I guess,” she replied, not really sure how to respond to that compliment. Wait why did this Lena miss the skirt, did that mean her Lena liked it?

Watching her other-self fight was nothing short of amazing, however, the raw strength on display was incredible and the short-haired blonde laughed as she fought. It was as if this other version of herself had fully embraced being Supergirl and reveled in it. Not wanting to be outdone she started using her heat-vision to blast and hold of the Elementals that tried to rush the armor-wearing Lena who seemed fearless.

“Thank you, darling,” the armored version of Lena thanked her with another wink and what was with that?

“Are we almost ready, honey? I could fight these things all day but we’re due home soon, remember,” her doppelgänger shouted as she headbutted another one of the rock beings with a grin on her face before then punching it to pieces. 

“Almost there darling, don’t worry I’ll make sure we make it home on time for the show,” the slightly older looking version of Lena laughed and tapped on her wrist-console faster.

It was amazing how well the pair worked together, how easily their banter flowed and if that was in her future, then she was fine with that. Having gotten her bearings again with her head no longer pounding she started taking a more active role in the fight. One of the beasts with more brains than the others had noticed Lena trying to close the portal and rushed her, so she jumped in to intercept it by grabbing both its hands in a test of strength.

“You almost done?” she and her other-self both grunted at the same time and she pushed back against the towering rock monstrosity with her muscles straining.

“A few more seconds, darlings” the armored Lena assured them and absentmindedly blasted a small elemental that tried to charge her before going back to working on her console. 

“Reversing the polarity and here we go!” Lena then declared and hit a button on the small console which caused the portal to pulsate and then it started pulling the elementals back into it. 

“Time for you to go home,” she declared to the beast she was grappling with and delivered a swift kick to its midsection which sent it spiraling into the portal.

The remaining elementals were either dragged back into the portal by the force of its pull or simply hurled into it by her short-haired doppelgänger who was moving around at speeds she’d never dreamed of achieving. With the last of the elemental beasts either thrown or sucked into the portal, Lena pressed the button again and the portal imploded before then sending out a wave of force that caused both hair and capes to blow in the gusting wind.

“Good job honey and you too other me,” her doppelgänger laughed, landing next to her and held up her hand for a high-five. There it was again, the affectionate nicknames, these two seemed to be really good friends. 

“Well you did most of the work,” she admitted but gave the short-haired blonde a high five or was it a self-high-five in this case?

“Again, we’re so very sorry about that,” her doppelgänger apologized profusely, and the armored wearing Lena looked at them with a curious look in her green eyes.

“Yes, one of my experiments back home went out of control and broke through into your dimension, but I’ve sealed the dimensional barrier for now. But we have got to head back darling, dimensional prime directive and all that, remember,” the raven-haired woman explained to her doppelgänger and both her and her other-self pouted in response.

“You are no fun,” her doppelgänger protested to which the Lena just sighed but gave a small smile after the two shared a cute look. Wait, did she and Lena share cute looks like that she wondered. 

“I know I’m a total buzzkill, but we don’t want to miss... the show,” Lena reminded her partner with a noticeable pause in her words. 

“Oh no, crap we can’t be late we've been late the last two times for her... I mean for the thing! Sorry but she’s right we got to go,” her short-haired twin declared with a brief look of panic on her face before giving her a quick hug.

“Hey, before you go, can you at least tell me who made your suit? Because it looks freaking amazing! And you have pants, that's unfair,” she asked really curious because it looked so comfortable and practical and she wouldn’t mind having one herself. 

“I know isn’t it the coolest? And my wife made it for me!” her doppelgänger blurted out and that made the Lena by her side let out a clearly long-suffering groan.

“Your... your wife? You have a wife?” she asked or more like squeaked in shock and looked between her doppelgänger and the armor-wearing Lena. Then she looked down at her doppelgänger’s hand which sported both a sizable diamond ring and a wedding band.

"Yes, yes I do!" her twin declared with a sheepish look on her face and looked at Lena with nothing but love and adoration in her eyes. In response, Lena frowned but then her doppelgänger pouted and the armor-wearing Lena let out another frustrated but quite adorable groan. It all came together, the nicknames, the comment about her skirt and the looks between the two.

“Yes, I’m the wife, don't look so surprised Kara,” Lena admitted with a sigh raising her hand and the glove around it vanished revealing both a Kryptonian bracelet and a wedding ring. 

“I have so many questions… when did you two start date...” she started asking one of the three billion questions she had racing through her mind.

“Nope, no questions, my darling wife here has already blurted out too much information but at least there is no need for any more awkward subterfuge,” Lena stopped her from asking any questions as the suits glove and helmet rematerialized. But along with those the green triangle on the armor’s chest also morphed into the House of El crest.

“Sorry, but she’s right like she usually is,” her doppelgänger admitted with a sigh and gave her wife an apologetic look.

“I… guess I understand, well thanks for the help,” she said and smiled at the pair to which her doppelgänger saluted her.

“Alright, inputting the coordinates for home, it was nice meeting you Supergirl in a skirt,” Lena said which earned her a playful punch to the shoulder from her doppelgänger while she was once again inputting commands on the glowing green wrist console. Stealing a peek at the console she saw that it was filled with Kryptonian symbols. This Lena knew Kryptonian!

“Hey, if you ever figure to dimensional travel with your Lena come visit us,” her doppelgänger shouted out cheerfully before the pair vanished in a flash of blinding green light leaving her alone in the ruins of the lab.

“Kara, Kara are you there? Come in damn it!” Alex’s voice demanded in her ear and she put her finger to her ear to respond.

“Yeah I’m here, problem solved, the portal is closed, and I’ve got a major headache,” she said and felt the phone she kept in her boot vibrating. 

“What happened? We lost all visuals on the site after that flash of light,” her sister asked while she pulled the phone from her boot.

“You… you wouldn’t believe me if I told you… Look I’m a bit out of sorts so I'm going offline for a bit...” she trailed off and turned off her communicator when she saw the message on her screen in Kryptonian which translated to: _Tell her soon it won’t be easy but good luck! Lena Kieran Zor-El._

“Oh boy!” she muttered to herself as she sat down heavily on a piece of broken concrete. 

This was all too much, her and Lena, somewhere, somehow were married. In one brief moment, her entire world had been turned upside down and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with this new information. Lena was her friend, her best friend maybe, but she wasn’t gay, was she? Had she even bothered to ask? The raven-haired genius had broken up with James recently, but that didn’t mean anything right? It all made her head hurt even more, so she took to the skies to clear her mind.

For a good long while, she flew around National City, trying to be useful, thwarting a robbery here, saving a kitten from a tree there and stopping for a box of potstickers at one of her favorite places. By the time she found herself at L-Corp, sitting on the edge of the roof of the building where she kicked her feet, it was dusk. Why she was here he didn’t know, but Lena’s doppelgänger’s message kept repeating in her mind. Her and Lena, married, Lena wearing a power armor under the crest of the House of El fighting by her side, it was all too much. Popping another potsticker in her mouth she looked out over her city and smiled despite it all. 

“You know, when security called me about a girl in a cape eating take-out on my roof I had come to see it for myself,” Lena’s husky voice rang in her ear causing her to drop her next potsticker and she watched it fall to the ground far below her dangling feet.

“Lena, hi!” she said, putting down the box with her voice sounding way too high pitched and she turned around to face the raven-haired CEO.

“Uh hi, dare I ask why you’re eating Chinese food on my roof?” Lena asked buttoning up her the blue jacket of her suit to ward off the slight chill.

“Needed some time to think,” she admitted and to her surprise, Lena came over to sit down next to her with a small smile on her face.

“We all need to do that from time to time, saw you on the news, by the way, good work at that lab,” Lena praised her and again that message rang like a bell in her head. Tell her soon it won’t be easy but good luck!

“Thank you, I… hey we’ve known each other for two years, now right?” she asked and bit into her bottom lip because here went nothing. 

“Something like that, why? You’re not asking me out, are you?” Lena joked and that made her pause a little bit too long. 

“Are… you asking me out?” Lena asked in a bit more subdued tone of voice once she didn’t reply right away.

“You’re…” she stammered and looked down into the box of potstickers wondering if she could stuff her head down in it to hide.

“I’m bisexual yes, I don’t go around shouting it from the rooftops, but I am,” the raven-haired CEO answered without pausing to think and that made things a lot more complicated. In the two years they’d known each other she’d never thought or maybe dared to ask.

“Does… does Kara know? It’s just that you two spend a lot of time together,” she asked and quickly tried to cover her tracks.

“If she does then my darling Kara does a great job of hiding it. Did you know that I filled that woman’s office with flowers and bought her place of work because she was sad, but I guess Kara Danvers doesn’t do subtle hints,” Lena chuckled and then put a hand on her knee which gave her goosebumps.

“What about you Supergirl, I’ve never asked but…” the green-eyed beauty left the question hanging and she felt like she had to answer it.

“On Krypton we didn’t have our sexuality as compartmentalized as you do here on Earth. If you liked someone you just liked them,” she tried to explain how she’d been raised. It was an oversimplification, of course, but she was too distracted right now to go into how courtship among the great houses of Krypton had been handled.

“I like the sound of that and it makes things a lot simpler I guess,” Lena laughed and how those green eyes danced when she did so but that made what she had to say next all the more difficult. 

Looking between Lena's flawless features, those green eyes, and red lips and down to the slender pale hand on her knee, she struggled with what to say next. It would be so easy to keep the lie going, date Lena as Supergirl and hope things would sort itself out, but she had to tell her.

“Lena I would love to ask you out, but I can’t…” she said with a sigh which made Lena’s smile vanish.

“Oh, I’m sorry then... I must have misread something... I’ll go and call off security and…” Lena apologized right away while clearly flustered as the CEO got up to walk away.

“It’s not because I don’t want to! Rao knows I want to,” she called out after the retreating CEO and the woman froze in her tracks

“There are things… you don’t know about me,” she went on and Lena stood still but didn’t turn around to face her again. 

“I’ll show you... just give me a second please, it will explain everything I promise,” she pleaded wh allowing her voice to become more like that of Kara Danvers and Lena still didn’t move but she could see that the woman was shaking at the change in the sound of her voice.

First, she put her hair up in a quick and messy ponytail, then she pulled her glasses out of the hidden compartment in her cape and pushed them up on her nose. Rubbing off the lipstick she sometimes put on to appear a bit more different when she was Supergirl, she stood up and put her hands behind her back. Feeling very shy all of a sudden, she took a deep breath before speaking again. 

“It would like really help explains things if you’d turn around now, please,” she all but whispered as she felt very small then Lena slowly turned around.

“Ka… Kara…” her friend stammered, those green eyes going wide in shock and she shuffled her feet nervously.

“Yeah, it’s me, Kara… well, Kara Zor-El. But still, you know... me,” she said, and Lena stared at her with a mixture of shock and awe and horror.

“No… no, no this isn’t happening,” Lena usually so reserved and in control sounded like she was begging not to be told this.

“It is, you see twenty-six years ago, my home planet of Krypton was destroyed, and my parents sent me here… I was taken in by the Danvers family and they raised me. Four years ago, I moved here and became Supergirl and two years ago I met you,” she said giving the woman the short version of her history, the most important parts of it while taking a careful step towards the now shaking woman.

“How could I have missed it... you… flew in on a bus... you eat like a fully grown man...” her raven-haired friend went on almost laughing as the shock set in.

“And you filled my office with flowers… guess we both pick and choose what to see and hear,” she said softly as she finally understood what that gesture had meant and she took another step closer to Lena.

“Two years… Kara two years,” Lena then whispered and was she crying, Rao please don’t let her be crying she thought.

“I know… it was stupid of me… and I’m sorry,” she whispered back now standing almost face to face with her friend.

“I… and you’re…” Lena asked but left the question about her sexuality unasked with her eyes wide and her lips trembling.

“I’m Supergirl and Kara Danvers, so yes, yes I am,” she admitted, and this was the first time she’d ever admitted that to anyone else on this planet. 

“Fuck,” her friend cursed and turned away from her, but she put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from running away.

“Please, I’ve been trying to find the right time to tell you and I didn’t want to hurt you and…” she started trying to rationalize why she had waited all this time but the truth was that she had been scared. 

"Let me go," Lena spat out between clenched teeth but she wouldn't let go, too much was at stake for her to let Lena run away.

"Not until we talk things through," she said trying to be as gentle as possible but then with uncanny speed, Lena spun around and slapped her, hard. 

The slap across her face sent her glasses flying across the roof-top, but it didn’t hurt at least not physically, but emotionally it was worse than any blow she’d ever taken in her career as Supergirl. Lena was trembling with rage and shock now as her green eyes were livid and her jaw was firmly set. 

“You… you… want to talk things through! What about all those times we talked, spilled our deepest secrets to each other and all this time you were Supergirl and whatever it is you are!” Lena roared at her while cradling her hand, clearly in pain after the slap.

“I know… I wanted to tell you I swear! But I was so worried that if anyone ever found out… Lex, your mother, Edge, Reign, any number of them… they would come for you to get to me and…" she tried to explain herself but instead, Lena started beating her fists against her chest.

“I can take care of myself! Don’t you dare try to be all noble and heroic about this, you were afraid to tell me afraid to come out to me! Was it because I’m a Luthor? Or was it because you think I’m weak! Admit it you were afraid!” Lena shouted in her face and kept futilely beating her fists against her chest with tears threatening to spill from her beautiful green eyes. 

“Go on, lie to me some more, I’m waiting. Tell me it was all done for my benefit,” her friend taunted her but at least she stopped hitting her before she hurt herself.

With her mouth going dry she couldn’t answer Lena and in her panic, her eyes darted all over Lena’s flawless face and then down the fists resting against her chest. With her silence and wandering eyes, she also sent the wrong message which enraged Lena further and the furious woman raised an eyebrow mockingly at her lack of response.

“Oh, I see how it is, you’re no different than the rest of them,” Lena laughed a dry humorless laugh. 

Watching, but unable to move she watched as first, the raven-haired beauty popped open the top buttons on the blouse she wore and then traced a finger along the outline of the crest on her chest. 

“Did you lie because I was your dirty little secret crush, Supergirl? Or maybe I’m Kara’s closeted good girl fantasy? Go on, give in then, you wouldn't be the first. This is what you wanted isn’t it?” Lena’s asked but her voice sounded like it was a cold flame and it cut into her like a knife

Neither of them were in a rational state of mind right now and at Lena’s cruel teasing something in her broke. The look in those green eyes was too much for her Kryptonian heart to bear so she grabbed the shorter woman by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. It was like a feeling of fear and anger mixed with lust and hope all bubbling up in her chest, but mostly anger.

“So rough darling…” Lena mocked her, and it took all her willpower not to ignite her heat-vision, but her anger finally boiled over. Lena wasn’t being fair, and it would be easy to simply kiss her, but now she had to be strong. 

“Lena… stop this!” she roared like a lioness and Lena pulled her fingers away from her chest like they had been burnt.

“Then tell me the truth! What do you want from me! Why did you wait?” the raven-haired temptress shouted back at her and again pounded a fist against her unmoving chest.

“Fine! I was afraid! I, Kara Zor-El was afraid! But you try being told your entire life that you must be careful who you let in. Told to hide who you are and to hide what and who you want!” she shouted back at the raven-haired CEO with a fury she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“And for the record, this whole seductive temptress routine is so not what I want! I want Lena, the girl who eats Big Belly Burgers with me and then listens to me talk about my day!” she raged on while looking Lena up and down. That was a lie, but she did not want Lena like this and not out of anger.

Lena to her credit didn’t flinch at being stared down and shouted at by an angry Kryptonian even when she pulled the shorter woman closer trapping those pale hands against her chest in the progress. Both of them could feel each other’s hot breath and her mind was awash with emotions and ideas, she wanted to yell at Lena, kiss her, let her go and walk away. Which path to follow she couldn’t decide. In the end, Lena’s words made the choice for her.

“You know me better than that Kara, I would never tell you to hide,” Lena said through gritted teeth with her fists now pressing against the crest on her chest and with defiance in her kryptonite green eyes.

“Then why didn’t you tell me! Great Rao why didn’t you tell me Lena!” she raged on and if Lena was going to have her say and put on a little show then sure as Rao above, she was going to speak her mind as well.

Lena gave her a shocked look because this was the first time, she'd ever allowed herself to be angry to the point of evoking Rao’s name around another human being like this. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look! Miss ‘I filled your office with flowers, bought your place of work and gazed at you lovingly for two years’. Would it have killed you to tell me that you were bi? Was it too much for your Luthor pride to drop me a hint? To let me know that you were interested in me instead of hooking up with James! Or did you want me to come crawling to you?” she demanded as she was now bristling with anger and it was Lena's turn freeze up.

“Tell me! Because I love you and if you ever felt anything for me, please tell me why him and not me!” she demanded but it came out in Kryptonian because her mind was racing now at the implications of what she had just admitted. 

“Kara… I don’t speak Krypt...” Lena tried to protest while clearly being confused at her words, but she went on as more and more of the pieces fell into place in her mind.

“Don’t you Kara me! No, it hurt Lena! It hurt seeing you with him. What was it? Couldn’t have me so you went after the next journalist in line? Where was your moralistic bravery then?” she admitted how very hurt she’d been while trying not to yell because if she really let loose it would blow out every window in a ten-mile radius.

“I didn’t tell you because you were too pure, okay! Too fucking pure and perfect and everything a Luthor touches turns dark in the end so I'll be damned if I drag you down into that abyss with me! There, are you happy now!” Lena exclaimed now, show her fears and it acted like a bucket of ice-water on the flames of her anger. 

“Then if you are to fall... I’ll fall with you,” she whispered her own fearful confession with the certainty that no matter where Lena would go, she would always follow. 

“No!” Lena gasped at her admission and looked at her with wide green-eyes, begging her silently to take what she had said back.

“Yes,” she said firmly and rested her forehead against Lena’s and the woman didn’t resist or fight back against the gesture. 

They stared at each other for a moment, both of them breathing heavily, tears running down Lena’s cheeks now streaked with mascara and she felt hot tears spilling down her cheeks as well. With her hands firmly on Lena’s slender shoulders and the raven-haired woman’s small fists still against the crest on her chest, they stood like they were frozen in time.

“This is a mess… Why did you have to fight for me? Should have let me walk away like the others have done,” Lena muttered under her breath, breaking the silence with her voice shaking as she unclenched her fists.

“I would fight the world for you,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around Lena, and it was true. If anything would to ever happen to Lena those responsible would burn. 

They were both emotionally drained from shouting at each other and their voices were hoarse. Too many secrets and fears had been aired in a short amount of time. The message from the other Lena had been right, this wasn’t going to be easy.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Lena whispered back and flattened those soft hands against her chest, grasping at the crest and fabric of her suit.

“I keep my promises,” she declared and let go for her... she didn’t have a word for Lena right now, but she let her go. 

“I know,” Lena responded softly and then the spell was broken by both their phones going off at once with her ears picking up the emergency they were both being messaged about. 

“I need… uh I need too…” she stammered and looked around for her glasses that Lena had slapped off her face.

“Fly home on the bus?” Lena asked with wistful softness to her hoarse voice and she felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Something like that,” she sheepishly replied as she watched Lena walk over and pick up her glasses. 

“Here…” the raven-haired beauty even with her tear-streaked face said and fixed the bent glasses before slipping them on her face again.

“What… What do we do now?” she asked feeling a bit afraid and uncertain with Lena’s cool fingertips brushing against her cheeks when the woman pulled back her hands.

“I don’t know… all I know is that we can’t go back to what we were before. Kara, I’m upset at you, not mad at you and I don’t hate you but please understand that I’m very upset and will need some time,” Lena answered buttoning up her blouse again with a hint of embarrassment on her face.

“I’ll… I’ll see you again though, right?” she asked with a hitch in her voice as she floated backwards into the air.

“I… I’ll see you around Kara Zor-El,” Lena finally answered and flashed her a smirk and never before had such simple gesture made her heart sore as high.

“It’s a date,” she said without thinking and that made Lena give her a mysterious look that she couldn’t quite parse the meaning off. 

“Go on, go save the day,” the raven-haired urged her and wiped off her ruined make-up with the back of her hand. 

Flying backward she watched Lena's form shrinking as she flew further away as the woman stayed on the roof-top with her arms around herself watching her leave. It had been hard and painful, but Lena knew everything now. Their friendship, their relationship had been tested and the outcome of that test was still in question, but at least there were no secrets between them anymore and each knew of the others fears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep told you it would be angsty, I've been playing around with this idea for a while, it's based off an Instagram edit I saw where Kara runs into another Supergirl that casually mentions that her wife made her suit and that wife, of course, is Lena. I took it in a more dramatic and angsty direction which I hoped you like and this will be my new ongoing story for the next few months. 
> 
> Like I said this all came out of a prompt someone threw up on an Instagram story I browsed past last weekend. If the person who asked for it is out there, please drop me a line, I'm curious if it lived up to your expectations. Instagram link for those curious what inspired this https://www.instagram.com/p/B7_3ZoRASCL/?igshid=w4rn02ahcmy1 I, of course, took some liberties with it.


	2. Truth Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little over a week has passed since their encounter on the roof of the L-Corp building, and Lena Luthor might have succeeded in doing something Lex never did, break a Super.
> 
> Kara falls into depression unable to reconcile the two parts of her being after coming out to Lena while Lena cuts of all communications with Kara and her friends in a misguided effort to prove that she is worthy of Kara but Alex confronts Lena after finding Kara holed up in her apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me just start off by saying that I'm so sorry for what I do to Kara and to Lena in this chapter.
> 
> Also this runs sort of parallel with the events near the end of season 4 but then takes off in its own direction. Yeah, I suck at keeping things in canon I know!

Had it been a week? It felt like a week, but maybe it had been longer since her shouting match with Lena on the top of the L-Corp building. Total radio silence had then ensued, not helped by the actions of the Red Daughter and it left Kara to mope around her apartment after calling in sick for work day after day. Add to that her clone ruining her reputation which meant she had no need to suit up as Supergirl either and well it didn't give much inspiration to leave the couch. Lex Luthor was still out there, the Red Daughter too and she herself was a wanted woman, but she didn’t care or couldn’t find the will to care. There was an ache inside her that wouldn't go away now, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't pull herself out of the pit of despair she had found herself in. 

Though she and Lena hadn’t parted on bad terms or so she had thought, it hadn’t been the result she had hoped for. The hopeless romantic in her had, of course, thought that Lena would smile, tell her that she’d always known and then they’d hug and maybe even kiss. After that, they could go on a few dates and when they were ready they'd tell their friends that they were now together. But the reality of what had happened had been far more brutal. 

There had been so much shouting that she couldn’t speak the next day. Accusations had been hurled back and forth and the next day she couldn't look James in the eye after all but calling him Lena’s beard during their encounter. Then there was the fact Lena had tempted her, offering her everything she’d only dreamed of late at night and finally there had been their pained admissions of their own deep-seated fears. 

Like it or not, she now knew that her friend’s deepest fears were. Lena feared that if she were ever to fall into the same darkness as her brother, then she’d drag her down as well and by Rao, she’d go willingly too. But that realization, that she'd follow Lena into whatever darkness that might one day consume the green-eyed beauty had shaken her to her very core, so now she stayed in her apartment, holed up alone with her fears, doubts and darkest desires tormenting her waking hours. At the start, she’d had hope, but as each day passed without a word from Lena, she slipped further into depression.

Depression fueled by agonizing over every missed clue and hint that Lena had given her and beating herself up for failing to see what had been right in front of her face for so long. Not only did she berate herself for being so wrong about Lena’s feelings towards her but also over her own denial of her Kryptonian heritage. How for two decades she’d buried who she truly was deep down inside and denied herself what she truly wanted. It was enough to break a woman. 

“Maybe I am just a closeted good girl,” she muttered to herself as she rolled off her couch and reached for her laptop.

First, she closed down the browser tabs that were filled with either research-purpose lesbian erotic videos also known as porn, how-to guides to deal with coming out or sappy romance novels full of happy endings. Dirty little secrets out of the way, she opened up her social media page, went to her settings and with a few clicks she changed her interest from men to men and women. After that, she started writing, she was good with words after all and this would be quick and easy and more importantly, Lena would see, or someone would tell her about it.

_For the past twenty-one years, I’ve been living a lie and I’ve not been truthful to those close to me and in doing so I’ve hurt them. For this, I am sorry and hope those reading this will understand. Today I’m coming out, Kara Danvers is done being in the closet and I hope you will all be understanding of this decision. I do not make it lightly if my actions or inactions ever hurt someone then and I’m not only queer but also a Kryptonian..._

Lifting her hands from the keyboard she read over what she’d already written down and watched the cursor blinking at her from the screen. No, this wasn’t enough, and it was actually kind of lame. Still that scared girl, she chastised herself in Kryptonian as that same anger bubbled up in her chest again. The Kara and Lena she’d met had been so happy, so cute together and here she was with Lena deeply upset with her and also ignoring her. 

“Why can’t things be easy just for once,” she muttered to herself and not for the first time she erased the latest version of her coming-out statement and changed her settings back to what they had been before

This was a familiar pattern as well as she’d spent most of the past week going back and forth between being hopeful and depressed, with always leaning more to the side of depression. Writing out her confession to the world again and again before eventually deleting it and then watching more porn starring some dark-haired woman who looked like Lena or reading another self-help guide. Lena had been right that night on the roof-top, this was a mess and maybe she hadn’t been ready to come out as either Supergirl or gay to her friend. But she wasn’t queer she was Kryptonian damn it!

But as with all things in her life, it was never just one thing, no that would be too easy for the Last Daugther of Krypton. What was even worse than the fears and depression were her newly awoken desires. Coming out to Lena had stirred something in her and she couldn’t control it. The raven-haired beauty had called herself both Supergirl’s dirty little crush and Kara’s closeted good girl fantasy. Those things had been said in anger and haste, she knew that, but they still stung because they were true. 

Before she could sink into that familiar pit again that very desire hit her harder than any blow from her foes ever had. The vision of Lena that had been burned into her mind from the other night came unabated to the forefront of her thoughts. Lena, beautiful green-eyed Lena, with the top buttons on her blouse undone, those slender pale fingers touching the crest of the House of El and that husky voice whispering for her to give in. On the roof-top she hadn’t given in, it had taken all her willpower not to so, but here alone with only her thoughts, there was nothing to stop her.

“Rao…” she cursed as she lay back on the couch, her hand slipping into her pink pajama bottoms and not for the first or last time in the past week. 

The fantasies were always variations on the same themes. Either she was with Lena in that big white office of hers, the CEO kneeling before her while she was in the guise of Kara Danvers and the raven-haired temptress then proceeded to eat her out, lie she'd seen in one of the videos. Or she was Supergirl, being bent over the CEO’s desk and taken from behind, punished for not telling the green-eyed goddess sooner. This one was of the Supergirl variety and she felt herself getting wetter and wetter as her imagination ran wild. 

“I'm sorry…” she whined as she closed her eyes and rubbed herself closer and closer to a shivering orgasm. In her fantasy Lena was smiling at her from behind, calling her darling and giving her what she deserved as she forced two fingers inside herself to mimic her vivid fantasy. It ended all too soon in a gush of fluids and with her body shaking violently on the couch, like all the other times. 

Once the high of her orgasm faded, she pulled her hand out of her now wet pajamas and studied the glistening juices that coated her fingers before wiping them off on her pants. Again, the familiar feeling of loathing and sadness set in and she thought about why she was such a coward? She was Kara Zor-El, Supergirl and here she was hiding away in her apartment eating take-out, napping and masturbating. And then came the anger, at herself, at the world and even at Lena. Who was this weak human to taunt her? To ignore her? She was Kara Zor-El and who was Lena to refuse her!

With her eyes blazing with heat-vision she got ready to burn something to vent her anger, but a knock at her door made her jump and snap out of her rage. Slamming the laptop shut she darted into the bathroom, washed her face and changed into a fresh pair of pajamas, ones not wet from her arousal and covered in take-out stains. Ignoring her bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair she answered the door hoping against hope that it would be Lena standing there. 

“Oh…” she sighed in disappointment and stepped aside to let Alex inside with a bag of doughnuts in hand.

“Happy to see you too,” her sister quipped and looked around the mess of an apartment she’d been holed up in for days on end now.

“Why are you here Alex?” she asked sullenly but accepted the offered bag of doughnuts from her sister regardless.

“I’m worried about you… we all are,” her sister said as she started cleaning up the apartment, throwing out empty take-out containers and folding away the cape she’d thrown haphazardly onto a chair after she’d been declared public enemy number one.

“I’m fine, I just need some time… to get better,” she lied and took a bite out of one of the doughnuts after sitting back down on the couch.

“Kara, what’s wrong? This isn’t you, look Brainy finished analyzing that site of the portal from the other day and he said it covered in all sorts of radiation and what he called Oan willpower particles, whatever that means but maybe it’s affecting you,” Alex asked softly and put a hand on her shoulder.

“No, it’s not and you don’t know who I am… none of you do,” she muttered and stuffed her face with another doughnut.

“Kara, of course, I know who you are! I’m your sister,” her sister protested, and she didn’t reply instead silently poked around in the bag for more doughnuts.

“What happened the other day at the portal and then at L-Corp? Can you tell me?” Alex asked her and of course, they knew she’d gone to L-Corp, to Lena.

“How do you know I went to L-Corp?” she mumbled and curled up into a ball on the far end of the couch once the bag yielded no more doughnuts.

“Look don’t get mad, but as I said we are worried, so we tracked your flightpath for that day and it ended at L-Corp. Did something happen there? Was it Lena?” her sister pressed her, and she wanted to pull herself into an even tighter ball and vanish into herself.

Again, she was silent, it had been Lena, but not in the way her sister was no doubt thinking. Yet again, her silence sent the wrong message like it had done that night with Lena and the concern in Alex’s eyes started to grow and swell as she sat down next to her.

“Kara you can tell me anything, you know, that right? And I know things haven’t been easy since Red Daughter,” her sister asked softly as she put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.

That was all it took, Alex’s simple touch caused the damn inside her that had been holding back her emotions to burst and she broke down completely. Letting out a sobbing wail of anguish that shook the apartment, she wrapped her arms around her sister, but the words wouldn’t come out right. 

“It wasn’t Red Daughter... it was Lena… I… told her something and... she… hit me… and it hurt… and now she won’t talk to me but she said we’d see each other again and… why does it hurt Alex?” she blurted out, it wasn’t the entire story not even close but that was the only part that would come out as days of self-loathing and doubt, fear and anger hit her all at once.

“She what!?” Alex roared and recoiled back from her, trained eyes of a medic checking her for injuries while at the same time becoming hard.

“No, no please don’t be mad at her... let me explain… there was the portal right and this Lena told me to tell her so I did... but why does it hurt so much!” she sobbed with words failing her totally and no matter how badly she wanted to explain what had happened she couldn’t.

“Kara, where did she hurt you?” Alex asked her, stroking her face and hair to try to soothe her and looking into her eyes, but she could see the fury now slowly replacing the concern on her sister’s face.

“In here… it hurts in here… it’s like I don’t know who I am anymore...” she tried to explain how she felt while pounding her fist against her chest.

“Alright, I’m calling Nia to come and sit with you while I’ll go talk to Lena,” Alex stated now in what was best described as a full-blown super-agent mode as she rose to her feet.

“Alex... no...” she whined and shook but couldn’t get up to stop her sister who bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

“Don’t worry big sister is going to make it all better,” Alex promised her, and she was vaguely aware of her sister calling Nia to ask the fledgling hero to come over to, for all intents and purposes, babysit her. 

Then also ignoring the words exchanged between Alex and Nia when their young friend arrived, she again drew herself into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible. Why hadn’t Lena come back? What was wrong with her? Why didn’t Lena want her? Had it all been true, all the warnings about being careful, had she finally let the wrong person in?

* * *

Alex Danvers was many things, a doctor, a former agent and current director of the DEO, but first and foremost she saw herself as a big sister and a protector to Kara and all their friends. What she wasn’t right now was feeling up to being subtle when it came to dealing with Lena fucking Luthor. Kara had told Lena she was Supergirl that much was obvious, but whatever that woman had done in response had broken her sister’s spirit when combined with the actions of the Red Daughter and nobody hurt Kara on her watch.

Storming into the L-Corp building she tried to calm herself, but it wasn’t working very well, Lena Luthor had somehow hurt the usually invulnerable Kara and that couldn’t be allowed to go unpunished. Checking her side-arm again while riding up the elevator she looked at herself in the mirror but all she could see was Kara’s drawn and pale face streaked with tears.

“Miss Luthor is bus…” the assistant tried to stop her, but she blew past her with an icy stare and stormed into Lena Luthor’s office.

“Director Danvers to what do I owe the pleasure?” Lena Luthor greeted her, and her trigger finger itched at how casual the woman acted while Kara was at home crying while curled up in a ball.

“Cut the crap, Lena! What did you do to Kara?” she demanded feeling in no mood for pleasantries and put her fists on the woman’s desk while staring a hole through her head. The L-Corp CEO did look a bit paler than usual and her eyes were a little bit bloodshot, but otherwise, the raven-haired woman looked as composed and collected as ever. 

“I see, hold my calls please,” Lena said without flinching but merely pressed her intercom before leaning back in her chair.

“I’m going to ask you this one more time and then I’ll start getting angry. What did you do to Kara?” she asked again, and she had a great urge to punch the CEO if the answer wasn’t good enough.

“I didn’t do anything to your sister, Alex, though she’s not really your sister is she?” Lena asked coldly and she felt a chill go down her spine.

“Don’t you dare, she is my sister and whatever you did to hurt her, you better tell me what it was or so help me god...” she started shouting but got herself back under control, shouting at Lena Luthor wouldn’t solve anything.

“I couldn’t hurt her even if I tried Director Danvers, you know that and I would look to my brother’s pet clone instead,” the CEO of L-Corp merely mocked her with a knowing look on her face.

“If you didn’t hurt her, then why is she at her apartment bawling her eyes about whatever happened between you two the other night?” she asked in a change of tactics and that got a reaction out of the ice queen of a CEO.

Alex watched as a myriad of emotions ran across Lena Luthor’s face, they were small shifts because the woman had impressive self-control, but she could see shock, worry and finally resignation all pass over the woman's face in quick succession.

“Is there a reason you came here, aside from trying to bully me into confessing to something I didn’t do? If not, I don’t have time right now for crying and lying little lipstick lesbians or their adoptive sisters,” Lena dismissed her icily, that shocked her enough so that the calculative CEO noticed and gave a smirk.

“Oh, she didn’t tell you either, well guess what? It turns out that you’re not the only Danvers sister who spent a few decades in the closet,” the now visibly angrier CEO went on, but she couldn’t allow herself to be shocked into silence right now.

“What did you do to Kara?” she demanded for the third time with her jaw clenched on anger and they were almost nose to nose now as she leaned over the desk.

“I would never do anything to hurt Kara,” Lena growled back with an imperious look on her face and it was clear that there was no getting through to the woman right now.

“Then why did she tell me that you hurt her?” she asked and in a last-ditch effort to get through to her sister’s friend even if it meant asking the same question again and again.

“I didn’t hurt her! I would never hurt her! I asked her out and she had to go and ruin it by putting on her damn glasses!” Lena said in a voice just below a shout and then it clicked. They were both, Lena and Kara, being idiots, hurt and angry, but still idiots.

“Fine, both of you can be scared little girls about this if you want. But tell me this If you were so angry at her then why did you tell her that you’d see her again?” she asked and took the slightly softer approach again, growling at Lena wouldn’t accomplish much but the woman obviously had a soft spot for her sister.

“I… just can’t see her right now, now there are things that I need to do so please leave,” Lena answered defensibly and for the second time she saw then cracks in Lena’s ice-queen facade which made the woman turn around in her chair to hide it.

Sighing she looked at the back of Lena’s chair and this had come much more complicated with this latest bit of information. Not only had Kara come out to Lena as Supergirl, but there clearly had been some other more personal revelations as well especially if Lena had asked her sister out. Not that it surprised her, the looks the two always shared spoke volumes and unlike Kara, she knew what an office full of flowers meant. 

“Lena, all I know is that my sister is hurting and if you ever cared for her or any of us, please don’t leave her in pain for long,” she made her final plea to the better angels of Lena’s nature and turned to walk away.

“Tell her… tell her that I won’t allow her to fall,” Lena declared without turning the chair around and waved a hand to dismiss her.

“I will, but you should tell her that yourself,” she said and turned on her heel to march out of the building. 

Outside L-Corp Alex checked her phone to make sure Kara was alright. Nia was reporting that all was quiet in her sister’s apartment now and thankfully she wasn’t crying anymore. What had Lena meant by that she wouldn’t allow Kara to fall? Whatever had happened that night, it had clearly broken something inside both women.

* * *

With Kara’s over-protective big sister gone, Lena, walked out onto her balcony and took a deep breath. This was a mess. Kara was Supergirl, her Kara, her precious and pure Kara was the Girl of Steel and that revelation alone filled her with a sense of dread. It had been over a week, yes, but she still hadn’t fully processed what had happened. But she knew she had to push Kara away, for now, push Alex away, push them all away. They couldn't be allowed to interfere, to stop her from doing what needed to be done.

“I will make things better,” she said to herself and walked back to her desk where she pulled open a concealed drawer.

In the drawer rested a silver box with a hypodermic injection gun inside it, filled with a green liquid and next to it lay a pair of contact lenses in a case. Picking up the injector she sat down and pressed the needle against her neck, for a moment her hand shook but then she plunged the needle into her skin and injected herself with the green fluid. 

It burned like liquid fire in her veins! Gods, it hurt like fucking hell, but the nanites flooding her system would be needed for what she had planned, and the pain was only temporary after all. Once the pain subsided, she opened the case containing the contacts and popped them in her eyes. Blinking twice caused streams of data to fill her vision as the Augmented Reality filters kicked in and she decided to test her newest creation.

“Hope are you online?” she asked her new A.I. assistant and picking up a compact mirror from her purse she could see that her eyes glowed green.

“I’m active and fully operational Miss Luthor, what is our objective?” the A.I. asked as she stuffed the box, injection gun and all, back into the drawer. 

“Track down Lex Luthor, using whatever means necessary. It’s time that I show him who the real Luthor is,” she ordered the A.I. and stood up, but a wave of nausea hit her forcing her to steady herself against her desk.

“Tracking, shall I inform Supergirl of our plans?” the A.I. asked and since she’d built it partly based on scans of her own brain waves so of course it would ask about calling Kara.

“No, we’ll take care of this ourselves,” she said after biting back the bile rising in the back of her throat and walked over to a hidden panel next to the couch in her office.

“Understood, I’m detecting that your heart rate is elevated and that you’re having digestive tract irritations due to the nanites in your blood. Shall I compensate?” the A.I. asked and she nodded as she inputted the access code into the concealed keypad

“Do it,” she ordered and the nanites in her bloodstream went to work regulating her metabolism. Untested nanites were bound to have side-effects, but she didn't have time to run any more tests.

The hidden safe in the wall popped open and inside was a small purple and black box. It contained a rebuild of the armor she’d made for Supergirl, no correction Kara, to shield the blonde from the Kryptonite poisoning Earth’s atmosphere earlier in the year. Bullet-proof and durable, re-designed to work with the nanites now swimming in her bloodstream and it would be needed to take down the threats to her Kara. All she had to do was put the box against her chest and activate it.

Kara's revelations had shaken her to her very core, her beautiful and bright Kara, the girl who she had carried a torch for like some lovesick teenager, was Supergirl. But if Supergirl and Kara were one and the same that meant that Kara was always in harms' way and she would not allow that to continue. Memories of Kara, injured, bleeding and broken flashed in her mind, no more, Kara had suffered enough it was time for someone else to bear those burdens.

“Your heart rate is spiking again Miss Luthor, do you want me to delete all memories relating to Kara Danvers to compensate?” the A.I. asked and she shook her head.

“No thank you, Hope,” she said declining the A.I.'s suggestion while stripping down to her underwear before stepping out of her heels.

Since learning that Kara and Supergirl were one and the same she had spent every hour she could in the lab working because she would have to do whatever it took to protect Kara and that meant starting by taking out Lex and his pet clone. It hadn’t been a lie what she told the blonde on the root-top that night. To her Kara Danvers, was everything good and pure in her world and if she did this right the blonde would never have to worry again. Never have to put herself in danger again. A part of her knew that this course of action would only lead to disaster, but she had to do something to show Kara that she could take care of things and prove herself worthy of the blonde's affections.

Picking up the box from inside the safe, she placed it against the center of her chest and it instantly reacted with the nanites in her blood and started flowing over her skin. There was one other change she'd made to the design, aside from the purple and black color scheme, and she grimaced and then winced as the nanites in her blood activated, creating a series tiny access ports down her spine for better neural interfacing with the suits systems but she again endured the pain. It was needed for the full functionality of the suit and Kara's future safety was worth a bit of pain. 

“Lex Luthor has been located, shall I arrange for your transportation?” the A.I. droned in her head and she smiled as the suit sealed up around her sans its helmet.

Flexing her fingers to test if all her frenzied work had paid off and she smiled when the armor responded. With the nanites in her blood and the Hope A.I. in her head, she was ready, if she’d built this thing right it would give her greatly augmented strength and speed, not quite Kryptonian levels, but it would be enough to get the job done when combined with a bit of cunning. 

“Yes please,” she said with a grim look on her face and pulled a black case from underneath the couch. Inside it was a gun and a sword. The gun was for Lex and the sword edged with Kryptonite was for the Red Daughter, it was time to put all those fencing lessons to good use. Then a faint whooshing sound came from behind her and she gripped the hilt of the sword.

“Lena Kieran Luthor, it's paramount that you to stop what you are doing!” a deep voice boomed from behind her and she spun around pointing the sword at the intruder.

“Who the hell are you and how did you get into my office?” she demanded of the armored figure that had somehow circumvented not only her security systems but also her newly enhanced senses.

“I’m called the Monitor and I can’t allow you to kill your brother at this time,” the being told her and that made her laugh.

“And why not?” she demanded and powered up the armor, with the green triangular shape on its chest, similar in shape to Supergirl's crest, lighting up and its motors whirring to life.

“A Crisis is coming, and I need him,” the being calling itself the Monitor explained without really explaining anything at all.

“Not good enough,” she spat and sheathed the sword on her back and the gun at her side before she brushed past this intruder. 

“If you kill him now, Kara Zor-El will die,” the Monitor said and that stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Don’t you dare say that!” she roared, as hard she tried to keep her emotions in check for the past week it had been harder than anticipated.

“This universe has been altered by Kara Zor-El’s actions and now also by your actions and I must compensate for that,” the Monitor explained, and she wanted to scream in frustration.

“I have to protect her, the longer he’s around the greater the danger to her!” she exclaimed and activated the jump jets in the suits back and boots.

“The only danger to her… is you,” he said firmly and that made her pause and the jump jets powered down when she turned around.

“Explain?” she demanded as she used her A.I. enhanced vision to analyze this strange being, but it was as if he wasn’t even there.

“She is destined to be a Paragon of Hope in the Crisis that is too come, but if you continue on this path you will strip away what little hope she has left. Lena Kieran Luthor, you have hurt her more than your brother ever hurt her cousin,” the Monitor stated.

“No! I’m protecting her, why can’t any of you see that!” she shouted and, in her anger, punched a hole in the wall of her office.

“If you become a killer you will hurt her even more. You have little time and if you truly want to protect Kara Zor-El you need to put things right,” he said looking into her eyes she could feel the weight behind his words.

“I… what do I need to do?” she asked with her shoulder slumping in defeat as she looked down at her clenched fist. Somehow, she believed this being’s words and the thought of Kara, dying because of something she was about to do was too much for her to bear.

“Give her hope again,” the Monitor simply said before opening up a smokey blue portal and stepping through.

“How… how do I do that?” she called out after him, but he was gone and there she stood in a suit of armor, with nanites coursing through her veins and an A.I. implanted in her head. Well, you’ve done it now Luthor, she thought to herself. You did what Lex never could, you broke a Super and now you get to fix one too. 

“Change of plans Hope, start tracking subject Red Daughter and find me the nearest emergency in range of National City,” she ordered the A.I. and pulled her hair into a tight ponytail before activating the suits face-concealing helmet. 

“Yes Miss Luthor, extrapolating now,” the A.I. chirped and she unsheathed the sword again and looked at the shimmering Kryptonite along its edge. It was time to do something stupid, she decided before re-sheathing the sword and taking to the skies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we have a misguided Lena and a broken Kara, yes they're being idiots, but that's what makes these sorts of stories fun right? Writing this was hard, because man I just want them to be happy together. It isn't the gut-punch of a chapter like the first one, but hopefully, the reasons why both girls are acting like they do here are somewhat clear. If not I'll happily edit this to add more details or answer any non-spoilery questions you have.


	3. Crisis of Confidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara starts pulling herself together after a heart to heart with Nia, meanwhile Lena sets her sights on tracking down Red Daugther but gets distracted by the Children of Liberty and our favorite CEO has a what 'would Kara want me to do' moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be my first time writing Nia/Dreamer and I'm so not up to speed on the show but she seems like a sweet kid.

Kara tried her best to ignore Nia, the girl was a sweetheart and meant well, but she wanted to be alone right now. Alex hadn’t come back yet either from her mission to no doubt read Lena the riot act over what had gone down the other night between them. 

Though she doubted that her sister had gotten anything out of Lena since whenever the raven-haired genius put her mind to something there was rarely any stopping her. Right now, that stubbornness was clearly focused on ignoring her and that meant that it was also focused on ignoring whatever Alex had to say by proxy.

“Got to say, the whole brooding in the dark thing doesn’t work for you,” the girl asked after going around the apartment and pulling the heavy blinds open. 

The sun hitting her face made her wince, it was too bright, and she didn’t want to see it and the blinds had been drawn for a reason. The reason being to block out the sounds and sight of the outside world that her hearing was now picking up again. Not being able to be Supergirl, ate away at her, it was another layer of guilt to the self-loathing guilt sandwich she’d been feeding herself for the past few days. 

“You don’t have to be here, really I’m not going to freak out again,” she protested to her young friend, who shrugged and kept going around cleaning up the mess that was her apartment.

“I kinda do have to be here, Alex told me to look after you and I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I wasn't here for you like you were there for me,” Nia countered and filled two glasses with water at the kitchen sink before bringing them over to the couch.

“Drink up and I’m here if you want to talk,” the half-Naltorian said and handed her a cold glass of water. 

Taking a sip of the water she studied the younger woman who was so beautifully coming into her own as a hero. Not so long ago she’d helped Nia come to terms with her powers and her heritage and she’d even told the girl that she was Supergirl without hesitation. But then why hadn’t she been able to do the same when it came to Lena? Someone she cared about so much that it hurt being separated from her. The doubts set in again, what if she had been more confident in herself, more Kryptonian, maybe her current mess with Lena wouldn’t be happening.

“I… I don’t feel very much like myself right now if that makes sense,” she admitted to the younger woman. Nia wasn’t Alex and maybe the half-Naltorian would understand the dilemma that was haunting her waking and sleeping hours.

“I know how that feels like,” Nia said softly and gave her a smile to which she took a deep breath before speaking again. Having sobbed to Alex about what had happened she now said it for the first time to someone while not in the throes of a major emotional meltdown.

“I came out to Lena,” she said quietly and looked away from the younger hero who right now was so much braver than she was.

“In what way?” Nia asked calmly, of course, she’d ask that being half-alien and a trans-woman, she was the likeliest out of all her friends to understand her current plight. 

“Both ways. I told her I was Supergirl, that I was from Krypton and…” she started to say but then stopped. That last part was hard to say because over twenty years of conditioned behavior didn’t fall away easily.

“It’s okay Kara, take your time,” the younger hero, whom she’d interviewed before falling apart completely the next day, assured her with a smile.

“You know I had this dream about how it would go with Lena. I’d tell her, we’d laugh and hug and then we’d maybe even go on a date,” she said with a wistful laugh as the warm feeling from that thought appeared and then faded away.

“You can still have that, you two just got to get out of your own way,” Nia tried her best to reassure her to which she gave a faint smile.

“There is this other thing that’s been eating away at me too. It’s like whenever I’ve liked somebody and decide to tell them that I’m Supergirl, it never ends well and now there is this feeling inside me that’s compelling me to be more...” she tried to put her thoughts into words. 

It wasn’t easy to explain how she was tired of hiding who she was all the time, tired of putting on the glasses and smiling at the men around her like human society had taught her to do. 

“More Kryptonian?” Nia suggested and she nodded in response as her thoughts got all jumbled again.

Having seen her doppelgänger, standing tall, confident and fully embracing who she was had left her wondering if she was doing things the right way. In that brief encounter with Kara and Lena Zor-El she’d seen a glimpse into a future she’d once only dreamed off, and then proceeded to ruin it by having a fight with Lena because she’d waited too long to open up to her friend. 

Lena! At the mere thought of the raven-haired woman and with the blinds now open, her hearing honed in on the woman’s heartbeat. Slow, steady, almost too steady but it was there.

“Kara, are you alright?” she heard Nia ask sounding concerned but the thudding sound of Lena’s heartbeat was too much for her to bear and she tried to shut it out.

“Yeah, I thought I heard something that’s all,” she lied and tried harder to block out the sounds of the city.

“Look, it’s alright to want to embrace who you are and you shouldn’t be afraid to do so,” Nia went on trying to help but she’d had this talk with herself many times already.

“And what if I come out, post that thing that I’ve written out a hundred times about how a person shouldn’t live in fear and then what? How do I undo hiding who I am for over twenty years? How can I do that and not let people down?” she asked and pointed towards her laptop. 

“You wouldn't be letting anyone down and we’ll be there with you too, you seem to have forgotten that we’re still your friends,” Nia assured her and again her ears picked something up. This time a cry for Supergirl followed by sobbing and shouts of anger.

“Quick turn on the TV,” she blurted out when she heard more and more angry shouting and chanting mixing with fearful crying and sobbing.

“Okay, okay,” Nia exclaimed at being caught by surprise by her outburst while reaching for the remote and turning on the TV, but she already knew what they were going to see, she’d heard it from across the city.

The footage on the news was of what looked like a riot about to break out. A group of humans no doubt led by members of the Children of Liberty were gathered outside a building that housed an alien refuge. With the news anchor claiming that since Supergirl’s attack on the White House and the hero's subsequent disappearance that things in the city seemed to be reaching a boiling point in regards to alien and human relations. 

“Oh no,” Nia exclaimed leaning forward on the couch to watch as the scene unfolded on the screen. 

It didn’t look good, there were a handful of police officers outside the building trying to keep the angry mob at bay, but the entire situation looked like it was ready to boil over in a full blow clash at any moment.

“You should…” Nia started saying that she should go out there but instead she stood up, ran into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

Instead of suiting up she, slid down to the floor with her back to the door while holding her ears trying to block out the sound that she could hear coming in from all over the city. Then she picked it up again, Lena’s heartbeat, strong and steady. It wasn’t only that, the crushing realization hit her that she couldn’t go out there because she wasn’t Supergirl anymore, Red Daughter and Lex Luthor mixed with her own self-doubt had seen to that.

“Well, if you’re not going to do something, then I will,” she heard Nia declare from behind the bedroom door and she could hear the front door open and close as the young hero stormed off.

* * *

The jump jets on her suit allowed Lena something akin to flight, though it was more like very long jumps since the suit didn’t have full flight capabilities yet. The Hope A.I. had picked up reports of a stand-off between a group of humans no doubt led by members of the Children of Liberty, the authorities and a group of aliens holed up in a building nearby. From the sound of it, things were about to get heated and even though she wanted to think that it wasn’t her problem, something inside her compelled her to think about taking action.

“Give me a threat analysis Hope,” she asked the A.I. that now lived in both her head and an in the suit as she soared through the skies.

“Tapping into satellite feeds now Miss Luthor. Approximately one hundred humans on-site and double the number of alien and alien-hybrids, mostly women and children inside the building,” the A.I reported inside her helmet. 

“Chances of violence breaking out?” she asked and landed on a nearby roof-top with a burst of fire and smoke from her armor's jump jets located in two nozzles on the back of the shoulders and built into the purple boots. 

“Seventy-five percent and rising Miss Luthor,” the A.I. responded and she didn’t like those odds one bit.

Kara, her Kara, wouldn’t want people to get hurt and the words of the Monitor rang in her head, she was to give the woman hope. How she was supposed to do that she had no idea as of yet, but stopping a potential massacre wouldn’t be a bad start. 

“Prepare the non-lethal countermeasures, just in case,” she instructed the A.I. and checked the palms of her gloves. 

“Stun beams are charging and will be at your disposal shortly,” the A.I. reported and two purple circles lit up on the palms of her gloves.

“Location of Red Daughter?” she asked and got ready to make another jump, the jet nozzles on her back whirring to live again along with the ones built into the suit’s boots.

“Still extrapolating,” the A.I. droned and she sighed, finding and neutralizing the Red Daughter was her top priority, but something inside her kept pestering her to stop the impending riot.

“Let’s go take care of that little riot first then,” she said in a resigned tone of voice and blasted off from the roof towards the street where the humans crowded outside the building housing the alien refuge. 

Soaring across the skies of National City she covered about a mile per jump going from rooftop to rooftop. The A.I. in her head feeding her constant updates culled from cell phone signals, radio transmissions and satellites overhead. 

As the site of the stand-off drew closer, she cursed under her helmet, one of Kara’s little superhero friends was there. It was the one called Dreamer and she was quite bravely, she had to admit, standing between the humans and the building while projecting glowing blue barricades from her hands to shield the aliens inside. Now that she was close enough to the situation, she could hear that the mob was hurling obscenities at the young hero and the few brave aliens who’d come outside to try reason with them while a minuscule police presence stood by and watched but did nothing.

“Subject: Dreamer, half-Naltorian, oneiric energy manipulation powers, threat-level medium,” the A.I. Hope reported as scans of the blue and silver-clad hero filled the inside of her visor.

“Please! Return to your homes, this is not the way to deal with this,” Dreamer was trying to disperse the crowd of angry humans with limited success.

“Great, another goodie-goodie two shoes,” she muttered and here went nothing. It was time to look impressive.

Making her last jump she landed next to the young hero with enough force from her boot-jets to blow a few of the mob that had gotten closer backward. Rising to her feet while holding out her the palm of her hand, she pointed a purple glowing stun beam emitter at the group and had the helmet mask her voice. Time to take care of this situation and then go back to finding Red Daughter, it’s what Kara would want her to do.

“You heard the pretty lady creating the glowing blue constructs with her mind, go home, now!” she ordered the group with the jets on her back still running in case she needed to make another jump.

“Who are you?” Dreamer asked while giving her a questioning look but still looking glad for the back-up.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she replied with a chuckle and scanned the angry faces of the hate-filled people in front of her and then of the fearful aliens who had come out of the building to reason with them.

According to her scans most of the humans were normal everyday people from the nearby neighborhood, no doubt whipped into a frenzy by a few agitators. There was a tense silence, she saw a few at the front of the angry rabble twitching nervously and clutching make-shift weapons and baseball bats. When she glanced back at the few aliens that had come out to talk she saw that they were backing up towards the building. This whole thing was seconds from turning very ugly.

“Please, these people are your neighbors” Dreamer tried to reason with the group again and she had to give it to the girl, she had that wide-eyed optimism just like Kara.

“Shut up bitch!” rang from the crowd of angry humans and a beer bottle was hurled at the blue-masked hero.

Thanks to her A.I. enchanted senses and the increased reflexes granted by the nanites in her blood she managed to move fast enough to shield the girl and the bottle broke against the back of her armor with a splattering of glass and liquid. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, and the girl gave a nod, still maintaining the glowing blue barriers over the windows and doors of the building.

The first hurled bottle gave way to a shower of debris raining over them, mostly bottles and rocks and whatever the angry mob could pull free and she felt it each projectile slamming against her back. Sometimes she hated being right all the time. 

“What do we do?” Dreamer asked and they both glanced at the building where she could see women and children huddled together through the windows. Then she saw a young girl in one of the windows, she had blonde hair, blue eyes and sported ridges down her nose and right away she felt unreasonably angry at these assholes.

“You keep them safe while I go do something stupid,” she declared and turned around facing the now angry mob that was hurling insults and debris at them as the police seemed to have melted away.

“Hope, identify and mark the ring-leaders for removal,” she asked the A.I. and the display inside her visor marked the half a dozen or so ringleaders.

“Last chance! Stand down and disperse or else!” she shouted, and another bottle broke against the front of her helmet with its contents running down the front of the visor.

“Fine, suit yourselves,” she shrugged and pulled the sword from her back. Its green edge glistened in the sunlight and she took a stance with the tip of the sword pointed at the mob then she blasted her first target with a purple stun beam from the palm of her hand.

“Get her!” someone in the crowd roared and the group’s braver and drunker members surged towards her while behind her Dreamer shielded the building from the now shower of debris that was now being directed towards it.

It was going to be an ugly fight, but she propelled herself forward using the jets on her back and punched the first of the A.I. highlighted leaders in the face, sending him flying backwards as the augmented strength from the suit crushed his nose in a splatter of blood. By no means was she a trained fighter, but the A.I. made up for any fighting skills she lacked and the nanites in her body strengthened her muscles combined with the suit’s motors giving her near-superhuman strength.

Something about this felt deeply personal too, Kara, her Kara with her sapphire blue eyes, like that little girl in the building was an alien, she now knew that. Xenophobic idiots like these had to be a part of the reason that the blonde had kept her Kryptonian heritage a secret from her for such a long time. That made them another threat to eliminate to make the world better for Kara. 

A baseball bat blow to the spine followed by a loud clang, snapped her out of her thoughts about Kara and she spun around smacking her attacker with the flat side of her sword before then delivering a hard kick to the groin. 

“Stay down,” she snarled and started throwing punches while hearing bones crunch as each successful blow landed. Which was in turn analyzed by the A.I. telling her which bone she’d broken in her target and then giving her an estimated recovery time. Entering what she could best describe as a logical daze of a sort, she started dispatching her attackers with brutal efficiency with splatters of blood flying through the air. 

“Stun beams are recharged,” the A.I. reminded her and she held out the palm of her hand and blasted a group of the alien hating bastards with rabbit fire bursts of purple energy that left them convulsing on the ground and frothing at the mouth.

Another baseball bat blow to her helmet shook her for a moment, but she grabbed it on the next swing and tore it out of the man’s hand before throwing it away with the motors in her suit whirring. Then she stabbed him through the shoulder with a sickeningly wet sound and when she pulled her blade out, he fell to the ground in pain.

Pinpointing the main ringleader, she made a beeline for him, smacking people out of the way with the flat side of her sword and blasting them with the stun beam. The leader, a haggard-looking man in a red baseball cap and wearing clothes that had seen better days was shouting for his people to storm the building when she grabbed him by the throat and lifted him from the ground in full view of everybody.

“Tell them to leave,” she demanded of him as he kicked his feet while the motors in her suit whirred and the jets on its back blew out a puff of smoke.

“Sympathizer! Filthy alien lover…” he started reciting some spiel about the aliens which she was in no mood to listen to, so she put the tip of her sword to his side, with just enough pressure to pierce his clothing.

“Tell them to leave, now!” she demanded again with ice in her voice and allowed the black visor to lighten to reveal her glowing green eyes.

The man kicked his feet and gurgled in her grip as she twisted the tip of her sword against his side breaking the skin. Some people only understood force and a little permanent reminder of this encounter would help him to remember her and remember to not to mess with the people like Kara, people she cared about. 

“Fall back! Fall back!” he finally spat out and she dropped him to the ground. To underscore her point, she allowed the jets on her back to let out a blast of flame and still pointing her blood-tipped sword at the man.

“I’ll be watching you, all of you,” she told him and let the green glowing contacts in her eyes flash at him which sent him scurrying away with his fleeing cohorts. 

Sheathing her sword on her back she turned around to check on Dreamer, the girl was looking at her with wide eyes and suddenly, she felt sick. Looking down at herself she could see that there was blood on her fists, and all around here were wounded and unconscious Children of Liberty members. In her logical rage, she’d cut a path of destruction through their ranks. 

The aliens started coming out of the building and she saw that blonde little alien girl again, hiding behind her mother while staring at her with a mixture of fear and amazement in those blue eyes. That made her almost throw up into her helmet and she ran into a nearby alley.

“Hope disengage helmet! Now!” she shouted when the neural interface didn't respond, and the helmet dematerialized from around her head and then she threw up.

Emptying the contents of her stomach onto the ground she felt a pain in her chest and for a second the world went dark. The nanites weren’t sitting too well with her, but she could fix that once she was done or maybe it was the blood on her hands and the look on they blonde girl's face.

“Hey, are you okay?” Dreamer asked, putting a hand on her shoulder and she didn’t have time to conceal her face because giving another lurch she threw up some more and spat out a bit of blood. One to many blows to the torso would do that but the nanites were already repairing the damage.

“I'm fine! Go take care of those people,” she insisted as she tried to push the girl away while wiping the spit from her mouth.

“You need help to... wait Lena?” Dreamer asked and she groaned, first outing as a superhero, no she wasn’t a hero, and somebody already knew who she was.

“Do I know you?” she asked with a sigh but the Hope A.I. answered that for her quickly identifying the girl as Nia Nal, CatCo employee and Kara’s friend.

“I’m a friend of Kara's and Supergirl's,” the girl told her and had everyone but her known about the blonde's double-life she wondered.

“Of course you are,” she said dismissively and got to her feet with the helmet rematerializing over her head as the neural interface kicked back in.

“Look before you go, Kara... well she hasn’t been the same since coming out to you,” the girl said and looked genuinely worried about the blonde hero.

“I’m working on fixing things,” she stated and started firing up the jets on her back again while looking to the sky.

“By ignoring her and beating Children of Liberty members to within an inch of their lives?” Dreamer asked her pointedly and crossed her arms over her chest.

“A calibration error, I’ll fix it, but when I’m done Kara will understand and she won’t have to put herself in harms’ way ever again,” she explained. The logic was flawed, she knew it, but somehow in her fear-filled and damaged state she’d decided that if she could make a world that didn’t need Supergirl then she’d have Kara Danvers back. 

“That’s not your choice to make,” the girl told her with a surprising amount of fire in her eyes and that statement hurt making her power down her jets.

“She's a gift to this world! A gift we’re wasting by having her fight our stupid battles. Why can’t any of you see that!” she shouted as she let the helmet drop away again.

“Look, I might be new to this hero business, but whatever you’re doing I can see it’s taking a toll on you. Why don’t you come with me and see Kara, you two can talk,” Dreamer suggested sweetly and offered her a hand.

“Not until I can give her hope,” she stated and reactivated the helmet again, her nausea had passed, and she had to get back to the business at hand.

“If you go and kill someone, she will forgive you but she will never forget,” the girl told her as the jump jets fired up again and she got ready to take to the skies.

“I know,” she whispered and blasted off leaving the blue and silver-clad hero behind to watch her disappear from view.

* * *

Back at Kara’s apartment a seeming eternity had passed but she could hear bits and pieces of what was going on but couldn’t pull herself up from the floor. There was a fight, she heard that much, and children were crying, alien children. Like she had once been. Then the front door opened and closed followed by a knock at the bedroom door, it was Alex she could tell that much from the cursing.

“Go away!” she shouted and banged the back of her head against the door as she tried to block out the noises from the city.

“Kara, I talked to Lena, she told me that… things happened, but that doesn't matter because Dreamer could use your help, things are getting out of control,” Alex told her through the door.

“Did she… did she say anything about me?” she asked like a pathetic sobbing and lovesick teenager.

“She… she said that she wouldn’t allow you to fall,” her sister replied, and she gasped with a hand going to her mouth.

"Do you know what that means?” Alex asked sounding worried and she heard her sister sitting down on the other side of the door.

“Oh no Lena, no!” she gasped when she honed her hearing in on that steady heart-beat she’d picked up earlier and only now did she realize that it was in the same place as the cries for help and sounds of fighting had been coming from.

“Kara, talk to me, what’s wrong?” her sister asked now, sounding downright scared as she tried to think.

What had Lena done? What had that stupid woman done! Listening to Lena’s heartbeat from across the city she could now hear that it wasn’t right, it was almost mechanical in its steady rhythm and not at all like Lena’s regular heartbeat. Yes, she knew Lena’s heartbeat and this wasn’t right. Then it cut out for a split second before coming back. She had to… she had to do something.

Get yourself together Zor-El, she thought to herself, it could be nothing, you don’t have to go see her and you shouldn’t go see her. You’re not ready, you’re not yourself yet, she’ll hurt you, she’ll tempt you, she’s no different from the others and… and she couldn’t take it anymore. 

Heat-vision flaring she started burning things, clothes, books, anything marking her as human and anything that reminded her of her weaknesses and her failures. In her mind, she burned the memories of all the pretty boys she’d dated, that Kara Zor-El of Krypton if she’d grown up there, would have thought beneath her. All the lies she'd told herself when kissing them and how she’d allowed herself to be treated like the lesser. 

Then she saw them, her glasses resting next to a framed picture of her and Lena. Getting to her feet she dragged herself over and picked up both the frame and her glasses. Looking at Lena’s smiling face as she slowly crushed the glasses in her hand before dropping them to the floor. 

No more, no more hiding away from Lena, from Red Daughter, from Lex, the world because the President had declared her evil, from any of them. She was a Kryptonian, the proud scion of the House of El and these humans seemed to have forgotten that. On the rooftop, she’d promised Lena that she would fight the world for her, and she kept her promises. Even if it meant pounding some sense into Lena over whatever she'd done to herself.

“No more,” she said in Kryptonian while she heard Alex pounding on the bedroom door. 

Heading for the closet where she still had the suit she’d worn when she’d been under the influence of the red kryptonite. It would do nicely. Pulling her hair free from its stupid ponytail she stripped naked at super-speed before putting the skintight suit on. Running her hands down her body she grinned at herself in a mirror that had escaped her wrath. Yes, this was good, and it was overdue that Red Daughter, Lex and yes even Lena Luthor met Kara Zor-El.

Alex finally broke through the door and she smiled at her sister, who rushed forward to stop her, but she moved out of the way faster than the eye could see so Alex fell face-first onto the bed. No more doubts, no more self-loathing it was time to do what needed to be done. Taking off through her bedroom window she rose into the sky with a mighty roar. It felt good to be free and she set her sights on the imposter first.

* * *

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Lena was making a beeline for the airport that housed the L-Corp jet in case she needed it to get to where Red Daughter was hiding. The plan was simple. Locate the bitch that had ruined Kara’s reputation and once she'd got there she’d activate the suits stealth-suite, incapacitate the imposter and drag her back to confess in front of the nation. Beaten and bloodied if need be, no scratch that definitely beaten and bloodied and then Lex would get a visit.

“Sonic boom detected,” the Hope A.I. alerted her and in the distance, she saw a dark blue blur bursting up from between the buildings of National City before setting course due east.

“Hope, please analyze!” she all but shouted but already knew what the A.I. would come back with even before a blurry image of a jump-suit wearing Kara appeared inside her visor.

“Subject, Kara Zor-El, Kryptonian, power levels immense, threat level high,” the A.I reported, and she cursed. This wasn’t the plan. She was supposed to be the one to make things better and Kara was supposed to be able to be free to be herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go, who will get to Red Daugther first, Lena Luthor before her body gives out or Kara Zor-El. This chapter was tricky to write, I started out wanting to drag things out a bit, but Kara's transformation kind of happened halfway through the process of writing it and now it's up to Lena to pull her back. In the next chapter the Wrath of Zor-El.
> 
> And yeah that whole pretty boys that are beneath her parts that's me commenting on season 5


	4. Wrath of Zor-El

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena races to Kaznia to try and stop Kara before the Kryptonian does something she can never take back. Meanwhile, Kara Zor-El cuts a path of destruction through Kaznia on her path towards confronting Red Daugther for ruining her reputation.

Lena stepped into her apartment and threw her briefcase on the couch before taking off her heels. It was a beautiful day outside, something smelled good and she could hear singing coming from the kitchen as she played with the golden band on her finger. It felt good to be home she decided with a smile as she walked through the apartment. Picking up scattered pieces of paper, newspapers, interview notes, toys, crayons and then with a laugh finding a small red cape which she folded and put away.

“You know darling, you’re messier than certain a five year old,” she laughed when she saw Kara dancing around the kitchen with the latest Lpods in her ears while singing along to an upbeat pop-song and not hearing a word she said.

Admiring the blonde who wore a red apron over some very reporter-chic black slacks and a white shirt paired with a loose tie, she smiled. Those golden curls were bouncing everywhere, and a pair of thick black-rimmed glasses hung perilously close to the edge of the reporter's nose as she wiggled her hips. Leaning against the kitchen counter she watched the adorable blonde sing and dance while chopping vegetables and waited until she was noticed. 

“Wherever! Whenever! We’re meant to be together! Oh, Lena! Hi, sorry I was…” Kara stopped singing and blurted out her hellos apologetically as she took out her Lpods flashing her a dazzling smile with a blush creeping into her cheeks.

“Singing and dancing like a dork while making dinner, I can see that, but since when do you cook vegetables?” she asked and sauntered over to the blushing blonde with a glance towards said chopped carrots.

Not giving the blonde a chance to answer she stepped up on a small step stool, one made for a child, and kissed Kara on the lips slowly. It sent a pleasant shiver down her spine when the blonde responded by boldly lifting her up and kissing her back. 

“You know I cook something healthy for us every night silly. Have done ever since you made everything perfect,” the blonde replied, putting her back down and there was something about the tone of Kara’s voice that gave her pause.

“What… what did you say?” she asked as Kara turned away from her to continue being unusually domestic while happily humming and chopping more carrots

“You made everything perfect, don’t you remember? You, me, Lorri, we’re all perfect and safe now,” Kara answered with her voice becoming more droning and mechanical.

As panic started to set it she started looking around the spotless kitchen, but before she could ask what Kara meant by perfect, a little girl wearing a blue dress and with a head that was a mess of blonde curls burst into the kitchen. What was going on here, this wasn’t right, it couldn’t be right, but it felt right. 

“Mom, mom, you’re home!” the excited child shouted, and looking down she saw that it was the blonde little alien girl from the riots who had run up and hugged her leg. 

“I…” she stammered and tried to back away from Kara and the little girl but ended up bumping back first into the fridge covered with crayon drawings, report cards and a picture of the three of them at Disney World. None of this made sense and what was going on here? Why was the girl looking at her like that? Smiling up at her, with the ridges down her adorable little nose all scrunched up. 

“What’s wrong dear? Did you have a bad day at the office? Look, why don’t you go sit down with a nice glass of scotch and I’ll finish getting dinner ready,” Kara suggested perkily like some stereotypical fifties housewife with her eyes now glowing green. 

“And can I show mom what we did in school today?” the child asked and looked up at them with those same glowing green eyes. 

“Of course, honey... Lena, what’s wrong dear? This is what you wanted, right?” Kara asked her with concern in her robotic voice. 

“Yes mom, this is what you wanted, right?” the child repeated the same words and now the full-on panic attack set in. She couldn’t deal with this and doing the only sensible thing she ran. 

Running out of the kitchen she came to a stop against a wall covered with framed pictures. There were wedding photos, holiday snapshots and family gathering group photos she didn’t remember posing for, but they looked so real. Kara in a stunning white dress and her in a tailored suit with little Lorri as their flower girl. Thanksgiving pictures of them all happy together, cute pictures of idyllic picnics and Christmases. 

“What did I do?” she whispered when her eyes were drawn to a glass case on the wall, inside was Kara’s Supergirl costume and next to it was the purple and black armor she’d once worn. 

“Mom are you okay?” The little girl asked appeared at her side and she looked down at the blue-eyed child who looked up at like she was the most important person in the world. 

“No… darling I’m not I...” she muttered as her eyes were drawn to the outside and it couldn’t be. What had she done? 

Rushing to the balcony, she swung the doors open and stepping outside she could see that the entire city looked spotless and gleaming in the sunlight with each building topped with a green glowing emitter of some sort. 

“Gods, what did I do?” she whispered to herself as her ‘family’ joined her on the balcony with their eyes again faintly glowing green.

“You made the world safe mom!” the little girl declared happily with a big smile on her face and waved to someone flying by wearing one of her suits of armor with the L-Corp logo on its chest. What had she done? What in god’s name had she done?!

The beeping noise from the plane’s autopilot jerked her back to reality, it had been a dream, it had to have been a dream. Looking around she remembered where she was now, she was in the cockpit of the L-Corp jet, with the Hope A.I. handling the piloting duties and they were giving chase to Kara. She was also wearing a suit of armor, with untested nanites in her bloodstream and she’d fought a group of extremists a few hours ago. In the process sending over a dozen of them to the hospital. Yep, you’re a big bad hero now Luthor, she thought mockingly to herself. 

Kaznia was a long way away and she’d never flown a plane before, scratch that, she’d not known how to fly one until about five minutes before taking off and now her head hurt like after the worst night of drinking ever. But, having a lifetime’s worth if flying lessons downloaded into one's brain was bound to have side effects. 

That nightmare combined with the constant stream of information and data in front of her eyes thanks to the Augmented Reality contacts wasn’t helping matters. J’onn was missing, Lex was about to make his play soon, the National City media was calling the armored woman who’d stopped the attack of the alien refuge both a hero and a villain, endless projections and theoretical scenarios played out before her eyes and it was nearly too much to deal with all at once. 

“Did you have a nice nap, Miss Luthor? You were asleep for two hours and thirty-six minutes,” the Hope A.I. perkily announced in her ear and she pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“No… no, I did not,” she mumbled and started running through the flight’s checklist to distract herself from the memories of her nightmare. Even at top speed, she’d never catch Kara, or whatever the blonde hero had transformed into before the Kryptonian reached Kaznia, but she had to try.

Kara had looked terrifying but stunning when she’d caught a glimpse of the blonde before the Kryptonian took off from National City. The images her suit’s sensors had captured had shown Kara in a skintight dark blue suit with her golden hair wild and the enhanced zoom-in on the blonde’s face showed an angry resolve. Thanks to the neural interface between her and the suit's systems the picture of Kara’s face popped up in front of her eyes. 

“Hope, disengage the AR feeds for a moment please,” she asked and took the contacts out of her eyes if only to see the world like it was without them for a moment and not have to look at Kara’s face. Storing the contacts in a compartment built into the suit she blinked a few times and looked out at the darkening blue sky outside the cockpit window. 

Think Luthor, Kara has clearly had a breakdown thanks to you and your brother. Good work by the way and now you’re having cute domestic nightmares set in a dystopian future of your own making, the mocking voice in her head congratulated her. This wasn’t the time for beating herself up, she knew that, but she was quite good at it and she needed a drink right about now. 

“I’m detecting elevated levels of cortisol in your system, Miss Luthor, shall I compensate,” the Hope A.I. asked after sensing her rising stress levels. 

“No, that won’t be needed Hope and I need to think,” she denied the request. The nanites had stabilized for now and there hadn’t been any more vomiting but that didn’t mean she had to let them play around with her body more than was necessary. 

In her mind she kept flashing back to that dream or more accurately the nightmare though she wasn’t sure which term applied. Kara, being a domestic goddess and that little girl, it all had explanations she knew that. Kara was Supergirl there was no denying that anymore, but in her own selfish way, she wanted Kara for herself and didn’t want to share her with the world. 

Petty behavior from the petty little rich girl, the voice of her guilty conscience reminded her. The little girl at the riot had reminded her of Kara but had been terrified of her after she’d brutally beat down the mob that had been trying to storm the building. A hero wasn’t a title she’d ever give herself but for just once it would be nice to be viewed as one, even if only by one person. This was it, she was finally going crazy.

“Hope, keep course and speed, I need a drink,” she ordered the A.I. with a sigh and got out of the pilot’s seat with the motors of the suit whirring to live as she moved.

The plane was well stocked with food and drink and the drink part was what she needed right now. Pouring herself a glass of scotch she stared at the amber liquid and brought the glass shakily to her lips. One drink, just one drink to take the edge off and... no, this wasn’t the answer. Why had she been so stupid, this was her fault, she’d ignored Kara after the woman told her the two biggest secrets of her life.

Not that she wasn’t any better when it came to secrets, she was a bisexual who had not once dared to date a woman in public. Instead, it had been non-disclosure agreements signed and cash changing hands whenever the need for the softer touch had arisen and then there was James. Kara had been right, the two journalists shared many qualities, a strong sense of right and wrong and a heroic streak a mile long. Had she really been filling the void left by the knowledge of never being able to be with Kara, by dating James?

Selfish little Luthor, wanting the pretty blonde alien all to herself and then settling for second best, the voice that always taunted her rang in her head. It wasn’t fair, Kara was supposed to be the perfect and pure girl, not some god-like being from another planet. But the more she thought about it the more the lie she told herself didn’t work anymore. Kara was Supergirl, Supergirl was Kara, both shared the same strong principles and an unending urge to do good. Without Supergirl there would be no Kara for her to selfishly pine over and she loved them both.

“God damn it!” she howled and threw the glass against the wall watching it shatter into a thousand pieces. The truth hurt, but it was a necessary pain.

“I’m detecting elevated...” The Hope A.I. droned in her head when her blood pressure skyrocketed, and her anger boiled over.

“Not now Hope!” she roared and sat down in one of the empty seats with a loud thud before putting the contacts back into her eyes.

“Hope run the Happy Ending simulation,” she ordered her A.I. and she found herself in the familiar setting of her office

The simulation took place a little over a year ago and on the day when she’d told Kara that she’d bought CatCo. Smiling she allowed the fantasy to take over. In this simulation Edge never interrupted them and there was no need for Supergirl to come, it was simply her and Kara. 

“Why would you do that for me?” Kara asked her and gave her that dazzling smile that could melt the coldest of hearts. The blonde reporter looked just as she had done on that day, wearing a pale blue cardigan with her arms partly bare and a short black skirt showing off her long legs.

“Because I like you and you do big romantic gestures for the people you like,” she answered truthfully this time and watched the stunned and amazed look spreading over Kara’s face.

“You, you like me? As in... I want to buy you flowers... and chocolates and kiss you a lot, like me?” the projection of the blonde reporter stammered and fiddled with the hem of her skirt.

“I do, and I’m sorry if I haven't been more forthcoming about it, but I’ve had a crush on you for the longest time,” she said and put her hand reassuringly on Kara’s arm. Feeling those stronger than steel muscles under her fingertips. 

“Then… I guess… I should tell you that I like you too, but I got to tell you something else too,” Kara whispered and got ready to pull off her glasses. 

“I already know darling, so please keep them on,” she whispered as she kept stroking those powerful arms that always made her feel safe when she was held by them. 

Kara smiled at her nervously, keeping her glasses on and then she got up onto her toes before gently kissing the blonde. The stimulation quickly went down a familiar path, with Kara kissing her back and wrapping those strong arms around her lovingly. Soon she found herself pressing her body against the blonde’s strong frame as she ran her hands all over Kara’s back before finally pushing her against the desk and going down on her knees before her goddess.

“Lena… I’ve never...” the blonde stammered looking down at her through crooked glasses, with lipstick smeared all over her lips and she smiled up at her hero.

“Then let me take care of my hero…” she whispered running her hands up the insides of Kara’s long legs but as she was about to pull the blonde reporter's respectable good girl underwear down a blaring alarm cut the simulation short.

“Report!” she growled in frustration and right away satellite feeds from above Kaznia filled her vision. It looked like a warzone. 

“Oh no! Kara…” she whispered and on the satellite feeds there was a clearly visible mile-wide path of destruction from the country’s eastern border towards a compound somewhere in the snowy wilderness. Burnt out tanks, crashed planes and trees on fire littered the path and at the forefront was a blond figure blasting fire from her eyes. 

“Hope, take us down! I don’t care where just take us down!” she ordered the A.I. rushed for the cockpit as the plane started dropping towards an empty airstrip that was partly destroyed and on fire. 

Kara, what did you do? What have you become? She thought to herself and let the helmet materialize over her head and checked her sword and the gun she still carried. In the end, it didn’t matter what Kara had become, she had to stop her friend and then they’d have a long-overdue talk.

* * *

Rao this felt good, this felt liberating and she felt free. Kara Zor-El thought as she was showing these filthy backward aliens what happened when you messed with a Kryptonian. Hearing the tank shell coming towards her as it whizzed through the air, she swatted it away with the back of her hand and it exploded not even ruffling her hair.

“I will find you imposter!” she shouted in Kryptonian and the force of her voice leveled another swath of trees in front of her as she floated toward the military base where she’d heard her own heartbeat coming from.

Planes dived down at her from the sky but letting her eyes glow red she sliced the wings of the two jets that tried to strafe her with their puny gunfire and if only Lena could see her now. If they all could see her now. The jets crashed behind her in the distance with their pilots bailing out and she continued her unyielding march through the snowy Kaznian countryside as the sun was setting behind her. 

They had been trying to slow her down ever since she landed, at first, they had sent troops, and those had been blown out of her path by a thunderclap. Then they’d tried to shell her with their primitive artillery, and she’d shrugged it off with disdain. Now they were sending tanks and jets out to attack her to no effect. She was Kara Zor-El and they would not stop her from getting to Red Daugther.

Hearing the military leaders babbling in terror in their bunkers made her grin, did they really think they could stop her, slow her down? Then she heard the name Lex and with a blast of heat-vision, she reduced a nearby hillside to rubble. Lex was next, then she'd got see Lena, she had plans for the raven-haired woman. If she didn’t want Kara Danvers, then she would have no choice but to face Kara Zor-El.

Another barrage of shellfire hit her, and she laughed as the shells exploded around her with the fragments of hot metal bouncing off her skin and she stood still waiting for them to be done with the impotent display of military might. When the barrage ended, she floated out of the smoke with her eyes aglow and sliced their weapons in half at a distance. 

“Is that all you’ve got humans?” she shouted and continued her march towards the base.

The surrounding countryside was all very picture-postcard pretty, aside from the burning tanks and planes, snow covered the ground and the setting sun cast a pink hue over the snowy landscape all around her, it was almost a shame that she was going to burn this all down. Then finally they sent her out, her clone, the imposter. The Red Daughter clad in grey landed in front of her ready to fight.

“Finally,” she declared in Kryptonian and the imposter looked at her with confusion, of course, this inferior duplicate wouldn’t understand the mother tongue.

Not giving her foe a moment, flying forward she slammed both fists into the imposter’s chest and drove her into a nearby hillside and there proceeded to pummel her with repeated blows to the face until she drew blood. In response, the imposter blasted her with heat-vision, and she fired back with her own until she grew bored and kneed the girl in the stomach.

“Stay down,” she snarled as the imposter clutched her stomach and looked up at her with even more confusion in her blue eyes.

“Bet they told you I was nice, uh?” she asked and kicked the girl across the face sending her sprawling to the ground.

“That Supergirl would never harm a living thing,” she laughed mockingly and stepped on the imposter’s back with a loud crunching sound as she tried to get up.

“Well guess what… I'm Kara Zor-El,” she said bending as she grabbed a handful of the girl’s blonde hair before pulling her up by it while getting ready to blast her with heat-vision.

“Lena…” the girl mumbled still fighting back and struggling to get up while bleeding from the busted lips she’d given her.

“What did you say?” she demanded after hearing Lena’s name from lips that were like her own.

“Lena… will never… love you,” the imposter spat at her with a grin on her face and that gave her pause which the clone used to punch her across the face and break free.

“No!” she roared as another heat-vision stand-off ensued between them until a loud explosion that sent shockwaves across the landscape forced them both to stagger backward.

Lena would come back because she’d promised that they’d meet again and the thought of Lena never loving her fueled her anger and her resolve. Seeing red she borrowed a trick out of Barry’s book and using her speed she rained blows down on Red Daughter from every angle. 

But the imposter was fast too and rushed forward headbutting her with enough force to daze her, then the girl punched her up into the air before flying up and slamming her to the ground, leaving a small crater where they landed. 

Shaking off the effects of the hit she moved even faster and rained blows down on the girl as she held up her arms to defend herself. Blow by blow each like an explosion landed on the girl until she finally staggered and then faltered. 

“I’m sorry,” she said and raised her fist one last time to end this, but as it came down a blur of motion appeared before her and the sound of whirring motors and firing jets filled the air as someone blocked her blow followed by the sound of creaking metal. 

“Kara! Stop!” a voice roared at her from behind a black visor and it took her a split second to recognize the owner of the voice.

Lena, her Lena, wearing a purple and black version of the suit she had worn earlier in the year, stood before her with both hands holding her fist in place, stopping her from striking down the imposter. X-raying the helmet, she could not only see Lena’s face, pale and drawn, but also the nanites in the woman’s blood. What had she done to herself?

“I won’t let you do this,” Lena announced from behind the helmet's visor and pushed her against with surprising strength.

“You…” she found herself snarling at the armored woman. What had she done, Rao what had she done? 

“I said I wouldn’t let you fall with me, but I won’t let you fall either,” Lena whispered at her and the helmet dematerialized from around the raven-haired woman’s head revealing that beautiful pale face and a pair of glowing green eyes. 

Lena was here, Lena was really here. The thought repeated itself in her mind as they proceeded to stare each other down, with the Red Daughter slowly regaining consciousness on the ground behind her armored friend.

“I need to end this,” she protested and pushed back against Lena’s hands, who responded by grinding her teeth and pushing back as the armor protested against the strain.

“No, you don’t, you need to stop this, and we need to talk,” Lena countered and typical now the woman wanted to talk but she could see the nanites rushing through the woman's veins as well..

“Get out of my way Lena, let me finish this,” she demanded, stopped trying to push the armored woman backward and instead lit up her eyes with heat-vision.

“I can’t let you do that Kara” the raven-haired woman stated firmly without backing down and pulled a sword from her back to stand guard over the fallen Red Daughter. 

With the sun almost set now they stared at each other across the snowy wasteland, the sound of crackling fires filling the air. A breeze moved both her cape and Lena’s ponytail as the Red Daughter gasped for air on the ground. A Super and a Luthor facing off yet again, but also like never before. 

“I only want to talk,” Lena said but still took up a stance with her sword at the ready and pointing the palm of her gloved hand out with a glowing purple light on it. 

“Kryptonite, of course,” she snorted at the sight of the sword, and they started circling each other with their feet crunching the snow as Lena prevented her from getting to the imposter.

“I don’t want to hurt you Kara, but this isn’t who you are,” Lena tried to reason with her while glancing back at the beaten and bloodied Red Daughter.

“Oh but it is, they all turned on Supergirl and you ignored me, for twenty years I’ve been hiding who I am and the one person I hoped would understand ignored me,” she spat at the green-eyed woman.

“I know and I was wrong to do that, but you don’t have to hide anymore… we don’t have to hide anymore,” Lena said softly, and she could see the beads of sweat on the woman’s pale skin.

“Then why didn’t you come to me! I told you everything and you left me all alone,” she demanded as she felt that familiar anger rising.

“Because I was afraid and upset alright! Afraid to fall in love with a god!” Lena yelled back at her and lowered her outstretched arm for a moment with a tender look on her flawless face.

Flashing the armored woman a brief smile, she then burst into motion, a blast of heat-vision took care of the sword and a gentle tap would have knocked Lena out. But somehow the woman was fast enough to grab her by the wrist and again they looked into each other’s eyes now with their faces inches apart.

“Let me go,” she grunted as the motors in Lena’s suit were whirring louder to give the raven-haired beauty the strength to hold her own against the full force of Kryptonian muscle. 

“No, I won’t let you do this,” Lena grunted back, and her eyes pulsated with a green glow as dark green veins appeared on her face when she tried to overpower the pale-skinned woman. 

“Please, I don’t want to hurt you,” she begged the raven-haired woman, who with incredible strength pushed her away and squared up to fight again.

“You are better than this, and for whatever part I may have played in you choosing this path I am sorry, but if you want her then you need to go through me!” Lena exclaimed with her eyes now glowing a deep green and more snaking dark veins appearing on her skin.

Behind Lena, the imposter was struggling to her feet and again she saw red from rage and rushed at her armor-wearing friend. Lena stood her ground while holding up her arms and blocked several of her blows with a defiant look on her face, even as the sound of bending metal echoed in the wilderness around them. 

"I'm sorry," Lena said softly and then with the high-pitched whirring of the armor's motors she started matching her blow for blow and using the jets on her suit for added power the green-eyed genius started fighting back.

After several hard hits had been exchange she couldn't believe it, somehow after trading blows with her, Lena was still standing and defiant. Swinging wildly and taking a chunk out of the armor's right shoulder she felt Lena's hand against her body as if to motion for her to stop but then something slammed into her chest. It was some kind of purple energy that threw her backward a few feet and for a few seconds she saw spots in front of her eyes..

“I don’t want to hurt you either, Kara,” Lena shouted and blasted her again with purple beams from both her hands with enough force to push her back again.

“Then get out of my way, Lena!” she spat back and shook her head to clear away nausea the beams had made her feel.

Rushing Lena again she ended up eating a mouthful of snow when the armor-wearing genius side-stepped her rush, grabbed onto her arm and slammed her to the ground with enough force to drive the air from her lungs. Blinking a few times, she flew to her feet only to be faced by Lena’s pleading green eyes. 

“Forget about her okay, we’ll bring them down together okay… the right way. You and me, as we did with Edge when I bought CatCo. Don’t you remember, Kara? We were a good team!” Lena, now sweating and breathing heavily, pleaded with her to stop this as her armor sparked at the joints with one of the shoulder-guards hanging off it from having taken enough hits to put down Kal.

“Lena…” she whispered now deeply concerned about what the woman was doing to herself, but the spell was broken when Red Daughter managed to get to her feet and got ready to fly away as fast as she could.

“No!” she roared, taking off in pursuit but with the jets on her suit firing Lena managed to grab onto her waist and pull her back to the ground. Struggling to break free by elbowing Lena in the sides repeatedly proved futile because somehow the raven-haired woman held her firmly in place until the imposter was well out of sight.

“I’m sorry, Kara I’m so sorry but I couldn’t let you do that,” Lena said softly in her ear before letting her go after some unseen voice seemingly told her that things were all clear.

“You… you ruined everything!” she yelled at the green-eyed woman as she spun around while on the verge of tears, but right away she noticed that Lena now looked a bit unsteady on her feet. 

They looked at each other in the snow for the longest time, all around them, trees, planes, and tanks still burned, and Lena kept struggling to stand with the motors in her armor seeming to protest against each movement. But she was still so angry and still determined to end things. That was until Lena spoke and the fog of anger and rage began to lift from her mind.

“If I did… then… I did it for you… to save your soul,” Lena groaned holding her side in pain as she started swaying from side to side looking ready to fall over.

“Lena?” she asked as a pang of fear raced through her and a quick X-ray scan showed that the woman’s vitals were all over the place. The suit Lena wore was cracked and broken in several places and that strong and steady heartbeat was fading. 

“I’m sorry… Kara… I couldn’t… let you fall… because I love...” the raven-haired woman mumbled with her voice becoming weaker and weaker with each word before ending with a cough and then she fell first to her knees with a loud thud before collapsing face-first into the snow.

“Lena! Lena! No, no, no!” she shouted and raced to her friend’s side, rolling her over she saw the green glow fading from Lena’s eyes and a small smile appeared on her now pale lips.

“Stay with me, Lena… just tell me what I need to do,” she pleaded and begged as she cradled Lena’s petite frame in her arms. 

“Promise me that you’ll be… Supergirl… for me,” Lena whispered with a trickle of blood running out of her nose and then she reached up with one gloved hand to stroke her cheek.

“I promise…” she whispered back as the anger and rage that had overtaken her seemed to fade away completely under Lena’s touch.

With shaking fingers, Lena removed what looked like contacts from her eyes and she could once again see those beautiful green eyes. But the light in them was fading fast along with Lena’s slowing heartbeat.

“There she is… my… Kara...” the now pale-faced Lena started saying while cupping her cheek, but the words died on her lips and then the hand fell limply onto the snowy ground.

“No… no… Rao! Lena please no!” she muttered to herself, running her hands over the armor that encased Lena’s body looking for any sign of life but finding none. 

“NO!” she roared toward the heavens when the last of the light faded from Lena’s eyes and the blast wave caused by her sorrow and fury flattened everything within a ten miles radius of where she knelt in the snow.

Slowly getting to her feet she picked up Lena’s lifeless body and cradled it in her arms. Alex! Alex and Brainy could fix her, they had to fix her she thought as she rose into the sky. It couldn’t end like this. She wouldn’t allow it to end like this!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, sorry, sorry it's not ending here I promise. I'm having a morbid blast writing this, though I might have to go do a quick little short story where things are a lot happier to cleanse my brain before writing the next chapter. Things will get better eventually for our two idiots, but they're going to have to walk through fire first.
> 
> I know I started this as a purely Kara point of view story, but I love writing Lena too much and for some reason, Lena is easier for me to write. Plus it's fun to peek into both girls' brains. 
> 
> Next Chapter, can Alex and Brainy fix Lena? What happens with Lex and Red Daugther? Will Kara keep her promise to Lena?


	5. Hope Rises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara keeps a vigil over her fallen friend as the world changes, bringing some new and old friends into the mix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be skipping over or covering a lot of ground that's mostly in canon in this chapter, so if it's a disjointed mess I'm sorry and please see the endnotes for why I am doing it like this.

The hospital room at the DEO was dimly lit, on the bed lay the still form of Lena Luthor hooked up to countless monitors with several tubes sticking out of her body. The woman’s skin was deathly pale and crisscrossed with darkish green veins. In stark contrast to the morbid scene, a beautiful bouquet of flowers rested in a vase to the side of the bed and sleeping in a nearby chair was Kara, wearing her old Supergirl armor that Lena had constructed.

Opening her eyes slowly, Kara checked on Lena’s vitals again and again there was no change. It had been days since she’d burst into the DEO with Lena’s nearly lifeless body in her arms. Screaming for Alex with tears streaming down her face to please help. Closing her eyes, she still remembered every agonizing second of it…

“ALEX!” she shouted, no roared, when she landed with her precious cargo in her arms, holding Lena’s face close to her chest to try and conceal the woman’s identity.

“ALEX?!” she shouted again, and the power of her voice shattered several windows and monitors around her.

“Kara… what's... oh no,” Alex gasped after she came running with Brainy hot on her heels. Her sister took one look at Lena’s concealed face and then shared a look with Brainy.

“Please Alex, Brainy, help her! I… we fought, but she saved me… her heart started beating again somewhere over the Atlantic but… but… why are you all looking at me like that! Help her! HELP HER!” she wailed, then blubbered and finally yelled as hot tears ran down her cheeks.

“Bring her to the OR, we need to get her out of this… thing,” her sister declared and then rushed them to an operating room. 

...opening her eyes again in the present, she remembered Brainy spouting something about reprogramming the nanites in Lena’s blood to repair her vital organs but the fact that Lena was even alive was down to the green-eyed woman’s ingenuity it turned out. Because the stupid woman had installed a failsafe in her suit had restarted her heart. Of course, her genius friend would do something like that. 

She'd then watched in horror when they pulled the ruined armor of Lena’s body, revealing the ugly bruises on flawless pale skin surrounded by swarms of green nanites along with what Brainy had called neural interface access ports on the pale woman’s spine and somehow she had still pulled through. Too stubborn to die, that was her Lena. 

Too stubborn to let you betray your principles as well, the voice of her guilty conscience reminded her for not the first time. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said for the thousandth time though Lena didn’t hear it.

According to Brainy, Lena showed some neural activity, but whatever she’d done to fight her to a stand-still had taken a tremendous toll on the woman’s body and mind, nearly burning herself out in the process. In his words, no human could expect to go toe to toe with a Kryptonian and come out on the other side in one piece.

Alex had surprised her the most in the aftermath of what had gone down in Kaznia and with Lex. Without even being asked, her sister. had made sure nobody knew what had really happened to Lena, only Alex, J’onn and Brainy knew the whole truth. The official story was that Lena had been injured fighting against Lex and Red Daughter to save Argo City and had helped save the world, but the truth was she’d saved her soul.

“Any change?” Nia asked quietly, stepping into the room in her blue and silver suit without her mask on and she shook her head.

“Nope, our sleeping beauty of a CEO is still taking her power nap,” she answered and walked over to the bed. 

Next to the flowers lay an issue of CatCo Magazine with the headline ‘Lena Luthor saves the world’ written by Kara Danvers, there was even talk that it might win her a Pulitzer. 

It was the least she could do for her friend. After returning from Kaznia, she’d found Red Daughter imprisoned by Lex being used to power his weapon he planned to use to destroy Argo City and Kal-El. Red Daugther, the girl had sacrificed herself to save her in the end too. Telling her that it was what Lena would have done before they merged together. She wouldn't lie to herself though, she had come very close to killing Lex when he’d asked her where Lena was, but Alex had stayed her hand and then the bastard had vanished.

“She’s coming back from this,” Nia assured her with a friendly smile and joined her on the other side of Lena’s bed.

“She’s too stubborn not too and we still need to have that talk,” she agreed and smiled at the thought of just how willful the raven-haired genius could be.

“And Brainy is working on some stuff and if anybody can get her up and around again it’s him,” the young hero stated firmly with a smile on her face at the mention of the oddball genius from the future.

“I’m sure he’s working very hard... and they always did get along,” she nodded and fixed a lock of Lena’s dark hair so it wouldn’t be in her eyes in case she woke up.

“I still wish that you could have been there when she came to help me at the refuge,” Nia said with a bit of awe in her voice and smiled down at the sleeping Lena.

She dearly wished she had been there and reviewing the news footage again and again had been one of the first things she’d done. Watching Lena first shield Nia and then taking the fight to the Children of Liberty members had both terrified and thrilled her in equal measure. There was elegant brutality about how Lena had fought and though she didn’t approve of her methods, it had been amazing to watch, plus her Kryptonian side had approved telling her that this one was worthy.

“I never asked you but... when you two stopped that mob from attacking the refuge, was she alright? Did she say anything?” she asked and looked over at the younger hero.

“It really should be her who tells you this...” Nia hesitated and looked away, but she insisted and even pouted a little bit.

“Nia, I need to know, and we don’t know when she’ll wake up again,” she begged and looked down at Lena’s still form, the woman’s chest rising and falling steadily being the only sign of life.

“Well after the fight she didn’t look too good, was throwing up and said that you were a gift to this world and that she would give you hope again,” Nia answered and looked down at Lena fondly.

“Hey, for what it’s worth she’s a hero in my book,” the young hero then said when she didn't respond and put a hand respectfully on Lena's shoulder. 

“I was in a dark place, don't know how it happened but she wouldn’t let me fall,” she whispered and put a hand on the glowing crest on the chest of her suit.

“Is that why you’re wearing that armor instead of the old suit?” the younger hero asked with a small smile and she could only nod.

“Lena made it and I kind of burned the old one,” she finally admitted feeling a bit sheepish about that, and the armor had been helpful when fighting Lex and afterward going back to the skirt hadn’t felt right.

“Well, it suits you and I hope she will know what it means when she wakes up,” Nia said and gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze before leaving her alone with Lena again.

“You could say that the suit suits me,” she chuckled at her own bad pun and went back to her chair to keep vigil over Lena.

Being Supergirl again was the best feeling imaginable, but she remembered her promise to Lena, that she would be Supergirl for the raven-haired beauty. The Kaznian-incident had taught her a lot about herself and she was now more careful to balance her Kryptonian side with her human side. 

Once Lex had been defeated her first course of action had been to come out, to Alex and her friends while telling them that from now on things would be different. She couldn’t wait to tell Lena about how they’d reacted, but all she knew is that once the stubbornly, brave, beautiful and stupid woman woke up again they’d talk and maybe start over again, and hopefully this time they'd do it right.

* * *

In the darkness, a single green dot was glowing. Neural network reconstruction at twenty-three percent and rising please hold. Assigning available resources to maintain core functions. Estimated neural pathway reconstruction time... unknown.

* * *

Kara was in Lena’s hospital room again where the raven-haired woman had not yet woken from her coma and it had been weeks. But at least, Lena looked better with her pale skin mostly free of the green nanite veins now.

Every day she’d come by either from a mission or after work and make sure that the raven-haired genius was alright. It had become a routine, she'd bring new flowers every three days and sit with the woman while reading her the financial news or just keeping up a one-way conversation with the sleeping beauty, as she’d started calling her friend, about what was going on in her life.

“James went back to his hometown,” she said and held onto Lena’s hand as she sat by her bedside again in her armor now with a cape attached to the shoulder guards.

The bulkier armor felt right and a fitting homage to Lena's sacrifice, she’d even added some Kryptonian touches here and there. With the words, Stronger Together and For Lena inscribed along the edges of the shoulder guards in Kryptonian script.

“He’s running the local newspaper and mentoring some of the kids there, he would have liked to say goodbye to you,” she went on checking the heart rate monitor and yet again there was no change. 

In the past few weeks, she’d speed-read countless books on medicine, engineering, nanites, and artificial intelligence. All done in the effort to figure out what had happened to Lena and why her friend wasn’t waking up. According to Brainy and Alex, there was nothing wrong with her at least physically, but it was like she didn’t want to wake up.

“Alex and Kelly, James’s sister you remember? They’re kind of dating and being super cute about it,” she kept updating her sleeping friend on current events.

“I came out at CatCo and it caused a bit of a stir, but Miss Grant sent me cupcakes, which was very nice of her to do. I umm... told my friends that I liked girls maybe more than boys and that I would try to be more Kryptonian, I’m still figuring out that last part,” she laughed and squeezed Lena’s hand.

“I… I could really use my best friend back though, Andrea is scary and I would love your advice on how to handle her and this new guy, William, we started out rough but he’s nice enough now but doesn’t get the hint about which team I play for now,” she confessed to her sleeping beauty.

“That’s me I guess, figuring stuff out all the time now and…” she paused when Alex slipped into the room to check one of the IVs hooked-up to Lean’s arms.

“Don’t stop on my account,” her sister whispered and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Why isn’t she waking up?” she asked with a small choking sound in her voice and looked up at her sister for answers she didn’t have.

“These things take time. Her body was under a tremendous amount of strain and…” Alex trailed off they both knew what had caused that strain.

“And she fought a Super and before you say it again, I know, I wasn’t myself and there was this thing inside me that…” she tried yet again to explain what had happened How Kara Zor-El had emerged vengeful and angry like some kind of ghost of her Red Kryptonite infected self.

“We did detect some elevated neural activity in your brain after you came back from Kaznia, plus J’onn also scanned you and we know someone was messing with your mind,” Alex reassured her, and she was right.

“But who or what could it have been?” she wondered and not for the first time, sure it had been traumatic to come out to Lena and then getting ignored but she’d done the world’s greatest over-reaction to it.

“We’ll figure it out, I’ll leave you two alone,” her sister promised her and gave her a kiss on the head.

“Thank you,” she whispered and watched her sister leave so again it was only her and Lena with the raven-haired woman breathing steadily.

“So yeah, it turns out I wasn’t quite myself in Kaznia,” she lamely apologized to the sleeping woman.

“I get this feeling that I was being tested in preparation for something, maybe the Crisis that is coming, but in the end, it was you that saved me, Lena,” she said softly and leaned down kissing the woman on the forehead gently.

“Thank you for that,” she whispered and stood back up feeling a bit better having talked to Lena again.

“I’ll be back tomorrow, sweet dreams my friend,” she said goodbye to her best friend and fixed her pillow before leaving. Lena would wake up eventually, or so she hoped, after all, they had so much to talk about.

* * *

In the darkness, two green dots were glowing. Neural network reconstruction at fifty-two percent and rising please hold. Assigning available resources to non-essential functions. Estimated neural pathway reconstruction time... unknown.

* * *

Alex looked down at Lena's pale face, Kara hadn't been come in today but had been very adamant about someone visiting Lena so the comatose woman wouldn't be lonely. That was Kara for you, worrying about everyone, though she knew that her sister's concern for Lena was perhaps greater than for most others.

"So, how is my favorite patient today?" she asked and checked the woman's chart. 

"Oxygen saturation good, vitals good, so why aren't you waking up?" she asked and looked down at the peaceful looking woman.

Kara had insisted she talk to Lena, and even though it felt silly she looked around to make sure that nobody was around to hear her, she then moved to the woman's side and bent down to whisper in her ear. 

"I never said thank you... for stopped Kara," she whispered into Lena's ear and smiled.

"But if you tell anyone I will deny it," she added with a laugh and here she was talking to her sister's comatose crush.

Still, seeing the classified footage of the fight between her sister and Lena in Kaznia had given her new-found respect for the woman. Lena Luthor had stood her ground against an enraged Supergirl but it hadn't been an easy viewing. Neither woman had held back, though Lena had been on the defensive more, taking blows that had in the past felled more powerful beings. 

"I'm sorry I ever compared you to Lex because you are nothing like your brother," she said but shook her head, here she was talking to a coma patient, it must run in the family.

"Get some rest, I'll come back tomorrow," she adjusted the woman's pillow and left her to whatever dreams she hoped Lena was having.

* * *

In the darkness, three green dots were glowing. Neural network reconstruction at ninety percent and rising please hold. Non-essential functions have been restored. Estimated neural pathway reconstruction time remaining... two hours.

“Remember,” a deep voice echoed in her head, but she didn’t want to wake up. 

“Lena Kieran Luthor you need to remember what came before,” the deep voice echoed again, and the world shook, but she didn’t want to get up, sleeping felt so good and she needed a few minutes more. 

Then the world shook harder and Lena’s eyes popped open. Alex Danvers and Brainy were pulling a tube out of her mouth and she sat up with a loud cough as the A.I. in her head booted up again.

“Welcome back Miss Luthor, re-initializing neural connections and nanite interfaces, please hold,” the A.I in her head droned. 

“Lena can you hear me, we need to move you okay, this part of the building isn’t safe anymore,” Alex told her and the entire building shook again as Brainy worked to unplug her from the monitors she was hooked up to.

“Yes, Kara was quite insistent that we get you to safety,” Brainy stated and she groaned before coughing some more with Alex rubbing her back. Why was Alex Danvers rubbing her back like they were close friends? This didn’t make any sense.

“Kara?” she asked and then coughed again while trying to make the world stop spinning so much.

“There you go, get it all out, you’ve been out of it for a while,” Alex reassured her again sounding way too friendly and rubbed her back some more as Brainy worked to get her free from the tangle of wires she'd been hooked up to.

“Hope, how long have we been out?” she asked the A.I. in her head and it took a while for it to respond as both Alex and Brainy looked at her like she was mad.

“Roughly three months and two days, Miss Luthor, but we are detecting chronological inconsistencies that are interfering with our calculations,” the A.I responded using the small nanite implant against her jawbone.

“Fascinating, you have a fully integrated neural network A.I. in there,” Brainy observed, poking her in the head and clearly catching on faster than Kara’s sister about what was going on.

“Kara?” she asked again at not seeing the blonde anywhere in the room and in response Alex shone a light in her eyes.

“Lena look at me! We need to move you because this room isn’t safe,” Alex told her again waving a finger in front of her face and she focused her eyes on the Director of the DEO’s finger.

“What’s happening?” she asked still feeling groggy and confused with her throat dry and allowed herself to be helped out of the bed, but her legs were weak from months in a coma and she felt her knees buckle, but Alex of all people caught her.

“We’ve recently experienced a reality merger and need to move you to a more stable part of this building,” Brainy filled her in, but raised a dozen more questions.

“Okay… then where is my armor?” she asked and looked around. If something bad was happening she needed to help Kara. 

"It was mostly destroyed... when we cut you out of it,” Alex supplied the answer with an odd mix of concern and sadness in her voice as they helped her down a corridor toward a makeshift control room. What had happened? Alex was never this nice to her before.

“I need it,” she protested and was carried to the control room full of people she didn’t recognize running around in a panic. 

“The only thing you need is to get your strength back, don’t worry Kara is taking care of things out there,” Alex told her firmly and then with a nod towards Brainy ran off. 

Looking around she could see read-outs about different Earths, that were no more and then Kara, in the armor she’d crafted wailing away at a giant pale-skinned being that looked like the Monitor that had visited her when she had been getting ready to go out and kill Lex.

“Kara…” she whispered and tried to activate the augmented reality feeds, but she didn’t have her contacts in and instead looked like she squinting her eyes really hard. 

“Here... and I took the liberty of upgrading your nanites while you slept and they should no longer overload your body. There are a few more failsafes in place as well, in case you get the urge to fight enraged Kryptonians again,” Brainy was explaining to her handing her a case containing the AR contacts and a bottle of water as Alex rushed around giving orders. 

“Thank you, but can you please tell me where are the remains of my suit?” she asked, carefully putting the glowing green contacts in her eyes after catching another glimpse of Kara on the screen and felt the nanites in her blood starting to repair three months’ worth of muscle atrophy.

“I can not tell you that because I am under orders from both Kara and Alex to keep you safe,” he said, but that wouldn’t do, Kara was out there fighting for the world and she needed help.

“Brainy, if Nia was out there what would you do?” she asked and that hit home, the tinman did have a heart after all.

“Nia is indeed out there, and you are putting me in an unenviable position,” he protested, and she smirked at him knowingly.

“Please, you said you had added extra failsafes to the nanites. I won’t overexert myself like last time and I’m sure we can get the suit working again if we work together,” she begged, Lena Luthor didn’t beg, but this time she would beg if it meant helping Kara again.

“Look I didn’t spend three months in a coma to sit on the sidelines, please let me help her,” she pleaded when he didn't answer and clenched her fist as more strength returned to her muscles.

“You did not get this from me,” he finally broke and handed her a small black and purple box. 

“You fixed it?” she asked examining the box that housed her armor in its compressed state and then looked up at him feeling grateful like never before.

“It seemed a shame to let such a beautiful piece of technology go to waste,” he replied and shrugged like it was nothing. 

“Thank you,” she exclaimed and then gave him a brief hug which felt awkward for both of them the moment it happened.

“I upgraded your beam emitters too along with a few minor feature upgrades. Now go, before our erstwhile director notices,” he urged her and nodded towards Alex Danvers who was looking between screens and appeared worried as hell about her sister.

Rising to her feet as her muscles slowly regained their strength, she put the box against her chest and activated it. The black and purple suit of armor flowed over her skin and the hospital gown she wore. This time there was no pain and as the visor appeared over her face she could see that the readouts were not good when it came to the state of the world. 

“Hope, do you copy? Are we good to go?” she asked the A.I. in her head as she ran up to the roof to take off from there with the suit's motors whirring to life.

“Yes, we're fully active Miss Luthor and can report that this suit has been upgraded with full flight capabilities,” the A.I. replied and she grinned as she stepped out on the building’s roof and activated the jump jets on her back.

“Perfect, let’s go help Kara, shall we?” she asked it and with a running start took to the skies before heading straight to the conflict raging in the distance. Hold on Kara, I’m coming, she thought as she picked up speed.

* * *

Kara was slammed to the ground and the Anti-Monitor wasn’t going down without a fight even with all of them pitching in. All she had to do was get back up there and deliver the bomb the guys had made. It would shrink the bastard into the Microverse and end this Crisis once and for all, it had to work or Oliver would have died twice for nothing. 

Getting to her feet with a growl she got ready to blast the shadow demons blocking her path to the sky, but something crashing to the ground in front of her stopped her and when the smoke cleared, she saw purple and black armored figure rising to her feet. It couldn’t be, she had hoped and dreamed for this moment. Hearing that strong and steady heartbeat made her hopeful and a quick X-ray check confirmed her wildest dreams. 

“Lena!” she shouted and smiled from ear to ear when the helmeted figure looked over her shoulder. 

The helmet dematerialized revealing a face she'd seen every day for the past months. Standing before her was Lena, in that same purple and black armor as before, with the outline of the El crest on her chest glowing green and purple energy crackling around her hands.

“Miss me?” the raven-haired beauty asked and started blasting away at the shadow demons with purple energy blasts from her gloves with abandon.

“Like you wouldn’t believe! But how are you even standing though?” she laughed and soon they were fighting back to back blasting anything that got in their way

“Brainy helped, and why does your sister look at me like she wants to hug me?” the happily grinning genius asked with her eyes glowing brilliantly green. 

“Long story look I’ve got to get back up there and help Kal!” she shouted and pointed to where her cousin was fighting the Anti-monitor. 

“Got it! Let’s go, I’ll cover you,” Lena declared without hesitation with the helmet reappearing over her head and they both took to the skies. Wait Lena could fly now? This was awesome! 

“You can fly!?” she asked in amazement as her armored friend flew circles around her and blasted anything trying to get close to them with those purple blasts. 

“Thank Brainy, though I would have figured it out eventually,” the armored genius laughed, and they rose higher and higher into the air together until they met up with Ray. 

“Ray this is Le...” she started but Lena shook her head and she gave an embarrassed nod. “A friend, she’s a friend,” she quickly corrected herself while Kal was busy taking the fight to the Anti-Monitor.

“Call me Hope, how about I cover you and you two finish this thing off?” Lena suggested before blasting off to blast more shadow demons out of the skies and that made her grin.

“Your friend has a cool suit, I like it,” Ray observed as Lena did a barrel-roll and a burst of purple rays exploded from both her hands. 

“A little help!” Kal shouted squirming in the Anti-Monitors grasp and Lena of all people came to his rescue blasting the Anti-Monitor’s hand repeatedly while flying around it until he released her cousin with a howl.

“Superman's free, now throw it like a girl,” Ray said and tossed her the bomb and she grimly nodded.

“Always!” she declared and raised her arm to throw the bomb at the Anti-monitor once Lena and Kal were clear.

Before throwing the bomb, she glanced up at Lena fighting alongside her cousin in the sky which made her smile and then down to her fellow heroes on the ground. The Anti-monitor towered before her but she didn’t flinch when she threw it. With an implosion, it was all over and she was joined in the sky by Kal and Lena, with her cousin giving her armored friend a curious look.

* * *

Landing back on the ground a bit clumsily because flying was still new to her, Lena found herself wrapped up in a big hug by Kara and spun around in circles. It made her quite nauseous and some of Kara’s hero friends were giving them a weird look that made the Girl of Steel blush when she put her back down.

“Guys this is… Hope and she’s kind of new to this, so be nice that goes double for you Mick,” Kara introduced her, and she saw Dreamer giving her a knowing nod which she was very thankful for. This was too much, she wasn’t a hero, didn’t want to be a hero and neither she nor her systems couldn’t keep up with all these new faces.

“Just… wanted to help,” she said making sure the voice modulation in her helmet was active, thankfully they seemed to take Kara’s word for who she was and why she was here. 

“Well we’re glad for your assistance miss,” Superman thanked her with his usual aww-shucks smile, sticking out his hand and under her helmet, her eyebrow rose. If Lex could see her now, at the thought information about her brother started scrolling in front of her eyes. According to the reports, the bastard was both alive and a hero! 

“It… it was my pleasure... Superman,” she said haltingly as the adrenaline wore off and shook the Kryptonians offered hand but then a stream of data filling her vision informed her about Lex’s location or more accurately he gave it to her. Then she felt something else, she felt extremely jealous when a stunning red-head wearing Bat-suit walked up and grinned at Kara. Why was this woman grinning like that at her Kara? 

“Great throw, Sunshine,” the gravel-voiced woman congratulated Kara who smiled and got all awkward at being praised by the red-head. What had been going on, this wasn’t good, none of this was good and on top of everything else, Lex was out there.

“It was nothing, really, and you did a lot of the fighting down here too and oh Hope, this is Batwoman, she’s kind of awesome and well she’s been a very good friend,” Kara introduced the red-head after babbling cutely at being called Sunshine before putting an arm around the woman and now her head was swimming with all sorts of thoughts and ideas she’d rather not deal with. 

“Hope, that's cute, is that why you wear that symbol on your chest?” the annoyingly, yes annoying was right she decided, observant red-head asked pointing at the shape of the House of El crest on the chest-plate of her armor. The way Kara was looking at this woman with her arm around her shoulders hurt more than she would have thought anything could. 

“In a manner of speaking yes, well you seem to have things in order and I… need to go,” she said hastily trying not to have her voice break and began to walk away but Kara raced after her and grabbed her by the hand.

“Hope… Lena, please don’t go... stay a bit longer so much has happened that I want to tell you about,” the blonde hero whispered and she shook her head, this was too much, too soon and she was Lena Luthor, not some superhero.

“Stay with your friends Supergirl, I need to take care of something,” she said and squeezed Kara’s hand gently.

“It’s just that I can’t believe that you’re back... won’t you please come with us?” Kara asked softly and looked over at the group that was busy celebrating that they were alive.

“I can’t believe it either... look I’ll contact you soon okay?” she promised and put her hand on the blonde’s chest.

“I missed you… a lot,” the blonde hero whispered and took her gloved hand gently before kissing it.

“I…” she started but frozen when she saw the redhead observing them with her arms crossed over her chest and she could take a hint.

“I’ll see you soon,” she said instead of what she’d wanted to say as she pulled her hand back and with another running start she took to the skies. 

Leaving Kara behind to watch her leave was hard, but glancing back she saw the redhead put a comforting hand on the blonde’s shoulder and she had to look away before she saw something she didn’t want to see. Instead, she focused on her next task, confronting Lex. 

Everywhere she looked on her way over to Lex's location she could see LexCorp logos though, something had definitely changed, and this wasn’t right. Finding him was easy since the coordinates she'd been sent took her to the L-Corp building where he was in a very Lex-like opulent office with floor to ceiling windows, sitting smugly behind a desk with that ‘I got away with it’ look on his face.

Floating outside the window she held up her hand and got ready to blast him and simply end things right here, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she watched her brother click a remote on his desk and a balcony door opened to let her in. 

“Took you long enough to get here, had trouble finding the place after the remodel?” he asked as she landed in front of him but kept her helmet on.

“What did you do Lex?” she demanded and kept the now upgraded beam weapon built into her glove focused on him.

“What I always do, I won of course,” he laughed and held out his hands like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“And what the hell did you do to my company?” she asked and looked at all the LexCorp logos which made her blood boil.

“You mean our company,” he corrected her and that made her power up the emitter in the palm of her hand.

“You see, while you were napping after oh so heroically saving your dear Supergirl’s soul, I was busy making deals with a certain entity. Shame about what she did to you in Kaznia though,” he explained and somehow she didn't believe that he was the least bit concerned about her.

“What did you do to her?” she demanded, and it had to have been him, who else could it have been.

“I didn’t do anything, she was simply being tested and passed with flying colors I might add though seeing all that Kryptonian fury unleashed was something else wasn’t but you know all about that Kryptonian fury now don’t you?” he laughed and mimicked a right hook with his fist. 

“Tested?” she asked with horror in her voice and felt a pain in her shoulder where she’d taken the heaviest blow from Kara while keeping her away from Red Daughter.

“By our friend the Monitor, you know the one who said that you couldn’t kill me, he wanted to see if Supergirl could overcome great despair and thanks to you, she did, and now we run the DEO as one big happy family and I’m a hero,” he congratulated her and it took her a moment to process that.

“So, we were both…” she trailed off, it would explain so much the rage and the anger and how upset she’d felt.

“Don’t flatter yourself, only Supergirl was being tested. No, your demons were very much your own I’m afraid,” he mocked her and that did it!

Rushing forward with her helmet dematerializing and grabbing him by the front of his shirt she pointed a glove crackling with purple energy at his thick skull and snarled at him.

“I will never work with you,” she spat at him with the suit’s motors whirring as she lifted him up from the chair.

“Yes you will, or everyone will find out that your precious Supergirl is the mild-mannered newly out and proud Kara Danvers,” he countered and tapped a nearby laptop that started playing footage of Kara in civilian guise using her heat-vision. For a moment, she could only watch as the video played of Kara. 

“This isn’t over,” she stated and dropped him back into the chair as the helmet rematerialized over her head.

“Yes, it is. You go play superhero and date your little Kryptonian girlfriend now or something,” he waved her with disdain and she turned away from him, but then in a moment of pettiness, she turned around and blasted the laptop playing the footage of Kara into smithereens.

“She’s not my girlfriend and I'm no hero,” she stated and took to the skies again. Saying that hurt the most because from the looks of things, Kara was Batwoman’s girlfriend now and she would have to watch Kara from afar again and pretend to be her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so, I didn't want to retell the Crisis event beat by beat since for storytelling purposes it pretty much happens as it did on the show, aside from Kara using a different suit (I love the armor Lena gave her) and Lena showing up at the end going phew-phew-phew and we're seeing the crisis from Lena's point of view. 
> 
> Think of this is my little cheat chapter to get everyone on the same Earth, get Lena back up on her feet and hopefully moving our idiots closer together if Lena doesn't murder Kate in a jealous rage first. I fully admit to writing myself into a bit of a corner and this is me pushing the time-skip/fast-forward button to cover my own plotholes. Feel free to let the public shaming commence.
> 
> Now, I've usually written stories completely as AU stories or made them take place between seasons and I tell you it's much easier to write without having the Arrowverse wiki open all the time. This story is now firmly in AU territory I'd say and I should be back in my element. Also, I did promise less angst right? :D Is Lena being an idiot or is there something between Kara and Kate? Find out next time!


	6. New World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara visits a friend in Gotham while Lena tries to adjust to being viewed as a hero before a certain young hero and an adorable kid bring them together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those reading this in the future, I rushed this chapter out originally to post something on Valentine's Day, hope you all enjoy!

Kara soared through the skies with the biggest smile on her face as she flew higher up into the upper atmosphere where she could feel the sun on her face, and then she halted her climb towards the heavens and looked back down at the planet below. It was beautiful from a distance her adopted little blue marble that she’d gotten precariously close to losing. 

"Though we go forth alone, our soul unites us under Rao's gladsome rays. We're never lost, never afraid, for we shrink not under the sun of righteousness,” she repeated the first few lines of the Prayer of Rao in Kryptonian.

It had been a few days since the Crisis had come to an end. Days since they’d averted the literal end of the multi-verse and maybe most importantly, seven days, three hours and forty wife minutes since Lena came back into her life with an armored-vengeance. It gave her those fuzzy feelings when she remembered her friend standing before her in that black and purple armor and Rao when they’d fought together! 

The word that kept coming up when she thought about Lena was the word worthy. Ever since her brush with her inner-Kryptonian rage, she’d been revaluating herself, now both out and proud, she wanted to be with someone who could be worthy of her affections and Lena Luthor was proving herself quite the worthy match for Kara Zor-El indeed. There was only one tiny problem with that. 

Though Lena was back on her feet and kicking all the ass, they had not spoken to each other aside from that moment they'd shared after the Anti-Monitor’s defeat. The next day she’d found out why Lena had run off after the battle in a panic. Lex Luthor was not only back, but somehow in charge of the DEO and on top of that, he’d taken over Lena’s company now named LexCorp again. The raven-haired genius had reacted to all this by locking herself away in a lab and only coming out a few times as her alter-ego Hope 

“Why are you floating in the upper atmosphere when you should be at work?” Alex’s voice asked in her ear breaking her train of thought.

“How do you know that I’m in the upper atmosphere?” she asked with a grin and started her leisurely descent back through the clouds.

“J’onn’s man cave has all sorts of fun new toys,” her sister reminded her, and she leveled out at cruising altitude.

“It’s called the Tower, not J'onn’s man cave and if it was, shouldn’t it be his Martian cave at least?” she corrected her sister and set course for Gotham city. 

“That’s why you’re the journalist and I’m a doctor, you’ve got such a way with words,” her sister teased with a laugh.

“Whatever, I’m going to drop by Kate’s for a bit, call me if there is an emergency,” she declared and in front of her loomed the somehow always gloomy-looking skyline of Gotham City.

“Again? Keep that up and people will start to think that you two are dating,” Alex laughed, she had to admit since after coming out her sister had been her biggest cheerleader for getting out here and taking her sexuality out for a spin or two.

“Let them think then, but this visit is for an interview for CatCo,” she explained and landed on top of the Wayne Enterprises building using a secret entrance Kate had told her about to slip inside unseen.

“Right, let’s test this thing,” she said to herself and pushing a few concealed buttons on her suit, it collapsed into a very fashionable blue bracelet.

“Not naked, not on fire, that’s good at least, thanks Brainy,” she said a quiet thanks and she was now wearing her work clothes.

Smoothing down her dress pants, checking the neckline of her white turtleneck and unbuttoning her blue blazer, she nodded happily that everything seemed to be in order. 

“You know, we have a front door?” Kate's smokey voice asked from behind her and she jumped giving a very heroic squeal in the process. 

“How do you do that? How do you sneak up on me like that? On me?!” she demanded while fumbling around for her glasses to complete the look of Kara Danvers, CatCo’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. 

“Family secret,” the short-haired vigilante chuckled with a grin and she had to admit it was good to see Kate again. 

“Come here you,” she laughed and gave the woman a great big hug to her slight protest. 

Kate really was nothing like the other billionaires she knew. Lex was all power-suits and tie-pins, Lena was high fashion and man-eater heels and all those confusing feelings, while Cat Grant had been the epitome of flawless elegance and Ted Cord had been a tech-lothario. 

No, Kate was all shades of blacks and greys and dangerous appeal, often in leather. With a devil may care attitude and often quite distractingly showing skin and tattoos. The tattoos made her very curious since they had been rare on Krypton and in Midvale, they had been the domain of wannabe tough guys. 

“Oh, so we’re doing hugs now?” the ever-snarky hero asked but patted her on the back regardless.

“We do the World’s Finest hugs,” she corrected the vigilante and that earned her a loud groan of misery.

“You love it, now where do you want to do this?” she asked the short-haired woman as she got out her phone and notepad. 

“My office can be locked from the inside and is sound-proof,” Kate suggested with a grin and she found herself grinning back. 

Kate was a good friend and world-class flirting partner, but that’s where things ended. The vigilante had her own relationship issues to deal with after all. Could she see herself hooking-up with Kate, yes? But that’s not the kind of person she was and Lena deserved better than that from her. Now, if only the stubborn woman would talk to her again.

“You were thinking about her again, I can tell, you get that lovey-dovey faraway look in your eyes,” Kate teased her when they stepped into the woman’s cavernous office.

“Am I that transparent?” she asked and took an offered seat on a squeaky leather couch while getting her pen out. 

“Only to those who know you or you know… to a world-class detective,” the short-haired woman shrugged, and she wished she could have half the woman’s ego.

“But how are things going with Lena? You were pretty bummed-out when she left after the fight with the Anti-Monitor,” Kate asked before she could respond and sat down next to her.

“How…” she started asking before clamping down on her tongue before outing Lena as the armored hero calling herself Hope.

“Sunshine, someone wearing a suit of armor looking very much like yours shows up, with the outline of the crest of El on it I might add. Proceeds to make you all giddy and nervous and then when she left, you turned into the world's saddest puppy. Plus, you’re not the only one with great hearing,” the vigilante explained, and she felt a bit sheepish now.

“World-class detective got it... let me just put that in my notes,” she muttered and pretended to write that down.

“That can wait, why don’t you tell me what’s going on, I mean it can’t be any worse than my mess, right?” Kate encouraged her to open up and she smiled. It was great to have a friend that understood both the cape stuff and the girl-troubles stuff.

“Lena has been distant, no scratch that she's been reclusive, but I guess that’s understandable I mean she saw a side of me that wasn’t very nice,” she admitted and pulled off her glasses because she needed something to play with.

“I know I saw the footage from Kaznia… no offense but you’re fucking scary when you want to be,” Kate stated but nodded for her to go on.

“But that wasn’t me, not really… now a part of me wants to fly over there, pick her up and take her somewhere where we can talk just the two of us,” she explained and chewed on the arm of her glasses.

“Alright let’s call that side of you the Brave-Kara, but what does Chicken-Shit-Kara want to do?” Kate asked her with a pointed look.

“Crawl into a bag of doughnuts and never come out again,” she muttered and put her glasses back on.

“Ouch, you got it bad Sunshine,” Kate declared, and she shot the woman a dirty look while picking up her pen again.

“I mean how do I even start. Hey, I’m sorry that you had to stop me from killing my own clone and almost got killed in the process?” she asked and squeezed the pen in her hand hard enough to almost break it.

“Or you could ask her out for a drink and talk… you know be casual, it doesn’t all have to be high drama and angst you know? Though the whole Luthor and Super thing between you two smacks of Romeo and Juliet,” her friend countered making way too much sense. 

“Speak for yourself, how is your married ex, by the way?” she asked and pointed her pen at the vigilante.

“You know I liked you better when you were in the closet and not this snarky ball of confidence,” Kate joked and that made her laugh, she was never going back there, that much she knew for sure.

“Fine, let’s table our messy non-existent relationships for now. I’ve got a deadline and you’ve got something to get off your buxom Bat-chest, right?” she offered, and Kate tensed up for a split second, so the woman wasn’t all grit and toughness, after all, she thought. 

“Don’t worry I’ll be gentle,” she teased and that earned her a smoldering look which made her gulp before launching into the interview. 

“So Batwoman why did you decide to come out as a lesbian at this time?” she asked while putting pen to paper. Making a mental note to ask Lena to meet up casually later, as Kate had put it. It wasn’t a bad idea and maybe it was time to take the lead when it came to things with the raven-haired genius.

* * *

Lena Luthor was having a bad day in a series of quite miserable days. Since she’d woken up from her coma she’d been thrust into a new world of being an unwilling hero, having to share power and company with her bastard of a brother and on top of everything Kara was off in Gotham again no doubt being corrupted by that redhead! Now she had left the safety of her lab to get what she desired which was a Big Belly Burger for lunch, but no! Now she was stuck thwarting a bank robbery because that’s what Kara would do.

“Is this how it works, you put on a mask and trouble just finds you? Like bad karma?” she asked the A.I. in her head and landed in front of the bank where some idiots using stolen tech, her tech, where holding the bank manager hostage in a stand-off with the police.

“Unable to extrapolate data based on metaphysical statements,” the A.I. responded unhelpfully inside her helmet.

“But I can report that there are eight hostiles and one hostage inside the building, shall we disable their weapons with an EMP first?” the A.I. asked, sounding almost chipper and at least it was enjoying playing hero it would seem. 

“Hey, hey! What do you think you’re doing?” an NCPD detective rushing up to her demanded but she held up her hand to silence the man. 

“Taking care of your mess, pull your men back detective you don’t want no part of this,” she ordered the detective and waved him off with disdain in her voice. 

Activating the beam emitters in her gloves she walked up to the bank and held out her hands crackling with purple energy. Time to be a freaking hero, she decided even though she didn’t have the patience for this today 

“I’m going to count to three and you’re going to surrender, or things will get very unpleasant for you,” she called out and was answered by a blue laser blast that grazed the armor’s shoulder.

“Fine don’t say I didn’t warn you, Hope hit it!” she ordered the A.I. in her head and an electromagnetic pulse erupted from both gloves as the jets on the suit’s back flared to life to fight back against the force of the blast. Then all the windows in the building blew out. 

Panicked shouting could be heard from the inside the bank as police officers ran for cover behind her from the rain of glass and she glided inside with a grin concealed by her helmet. The Hope A.I. marked each of the bank robbers by threat-level and she got ready to work out some of her issues via the not so healthy medium of kicking ass.

“Last warning, you can stay in here with me or you can all walk out of here and be taken away by the nice police officers outside,” she told them and pulled her new sword from her back, slashing it through the air.

Of course, they rushed her, how did these morons even think that rushing someone in a billion dollars’ worth of high-tech armor wielding pulse lasers and a sword would end well for them? Absentmindedly she thought while she ducked under the first clumsy swing of a deactivated laser rifle turned club and retaliated by knocking the robber out with the butt of the sword’s hilt as the motors in her suit of armor whirred with each movement.

“Two incoming hostiles from your left Miss Luthor, recommend low-powered stun blasts to the groin area,” the A.I. informed her and holding out her hand she blasted the two men trying to rush her backward with well-placed shots of concussive force to the recommended bodyparts causing them to fall convulsing to the floor while clutching their crotches.

Three down, five to go, she slashed the air with her sword again as she started carving a path through them toward the leader that according to her sensors was cowering in the vault while gently trying not to piss himself. 

Not even using the nanites in her blood to augment her strength she instead flowed through them all with splatters of blood hitting the bank's walls but being careful not to seriously injure any of them, Kara wouldn’t like that. 

Using a sword again felt good and she thought back to when she was younger and had trained as a fencer. The Olympics would have been fun, but her mother had thought it unseemly that she spent all that time with the other girls given her... urges. Effectively queer and slut-shaming her out of continuing her training and she would have really liked that medal.

Stepping over the second to last of the would-be robbers she strode into the vault where the leader was holding a crying blonde as a hostage with a regular gun. This one at least had thought to bring a back-up weapon that wasn’t based on her tech.

“Stop! Get down on your knees and drop the big knife, or the bitch gets it,” he threatened her while holding the gun to the crying woman’s face and why did it always have to be blondes. She was quite pretty though with curly blonde hair, blue eyes and very Kara-esque.

“First of all, it’s a sword, but let’s just be calm here alright... but call her a bitch again and I will hurt you,” she said calmly while crouching down to put her sword on the ground. 

“Fuck you! You’re going to tell the pigs outside that I’m walking out of here, no tricks and no metas,” the scar-faced leader of the now failed heist crew demanded.

“What’s your name?” she asked the hostage choosing to ignore the blubbering fool while holding out the palms of her hands to show him that she was unarmed now.

“Counter-measures are ready on your command, Miss Luthor,” the A.I. in her head informed her as the suit’s tracking systems worked on getting a lock on both the idiot and the hostage.

“Em… Emma, my name is Emma,” the hostage cried, and the leader started to panic while looking between her and the hostage.

“Emma, I need you to close your eyes okay?” she asked the woman softly while keeping her voice level as the targeting system achieved lock on.

“Stop that, whatever you’re doing stop it!” the scar-faced heist leader demanded with wide eyes waving his gun at her now and not the hostage which of course had been the plan.

“I’m not doing anything, look my sword is on the ground and I don’t have glowing eyes like Supergirl now do I?” she asked name-dropping Kara and that sent his mind spinning. At the mere mention of Kara's glowing eyes, he started looking around the vault in a fear-induced panic.

“Supergirl, where?!” he demanded with fear in his voice, waving the gun around looking to fire at the imaginary threat. 

“Emma close your eyes!” she shouted at the still wide-eyed and terrified woman and thankfully the blonde obeyed screwing her eyes tightly shut.

First, a burst of smoke erupted from the suit’s gloves blanketing the room in dense mist, then using the nanites that permeated her blood and muscles she moved faster than humanly possible. Blasting the gun out of the idiot’s hand and then rushing forward to punch him across the face with enough armor-assisted strength to knock out, by the A.I's count, three teeth and fracturing his jaw in two places. 

When the smoke cleared, both the would-be robber and the hostage lay crumpled on the floor. Sighing she offered the woman a hand which she accepted while still shaking and she pulled the blonde up to her feet. Running a quick scan on the shaking bank manager to make sure that she was unharmed and aside from a sprained ankle she looked fine, so she then turned to leave. Stopping only to picking up her sword.

“Thank you,” the woman called out after finding her voice again and then gave the robber a kick in the side for good measure.

“Don’t thank me, thank-yous are for heroes,” she stated and sheathed the sword on her back again. 

“Well, for what it’s worth that was pretty heroic… what’s your name?” the blonde woman kept talking nonsense while struggling to stand with her ankle not supporting her weight and she wanted to groan. Bleeding hearts of the world unite, she thought and almost wished she was back in her coma. 

“They call me Hope, can you walk?” she asked, and the blonde shook her head while shivering, no doubt from shock. It was official she, the big bad Lena Luthor, was turning into a total goodie-goodie two shoes, she thought to herself. 

“Come on then, let’s get you out of here,” she answered in defeat, walked over to the woman, picked her up in a bridal carry with the suit’s motors whirring and carried her outside to the waiting police.

Stepping outside the bank with the admittedly cute bank manager in her arms, she wanted to curse loudly, because the media had arrived along with the usual bunch of cell phone wielding gawkers.

So much for not being a hero now, since here she was carrying a pretty blonde to safety with it was being broadcasted everywhere and now the media would latch on it for the next news cycle. The suit’s systems picked up a nearby broadcast and she could hear the reporter speaking in real-time.

“I’m here at the 2nd Street Branch of the National City Bank where an unknown hero has just thwarted a high tech bank robbery ending a tense two-hour stand-off with police… wait I can see her emerging now carrying the hostage…” the reporter excitedly said before she cut off the feed while feeling the woman's arms around her neck.

Walking past the reporters and cameras without saying a word she carried the blonde she’d rescued to a nearby ambulance to be attended too, but before she could hand her over to the paramedics the woman grabbed her helmet with both hands and kissed her where her lips would be. 

“Thank you again,” the woman said sweetly and smiled at her and it was all caught by the cameras surrounding them with cell phone flashes going off and reflecting in her visor.

“Think nothing of it,” she nodded at the damsel because heroes rescued damsels right and got ready to take off with the jets roaring to life on the back of her suit.

“You might want to step back,” she gave her warning to the reporters and when they didn’t move, she blasted off anyways sending them scrambling backward from the exhaust from her suit’s jets.

Rising into the sky she set course for home, she needed to get out of this suit, have a strong drink and try her best not to think about how good that had felt. Lena Luthor wasn’t a superhero, she had no plans of becoming one, but then why was she running around calling herself Hope. She wished she could talk to Kara about this but the blonde hero was probably still in Gotham City.

* * *

Kara was in fact not in Gotham City, she had just landed in her apartment after a pleasant afternoon spent with Kate, the interview had gone great and the friendly flirting had been fun too. Now she had to type the interview up and send it in to be approved, but when she sat down at her laptop after taking off her suit and putting on her comfy clothes a news headline knocked her for a loop.

 **Hope rises! National City’s newest hero thwarts high-tech bank robbery!** The banner on CatCo’s website blared and she started devouring the article with her eyes darting across the screen. Pictures and videos of Lena first entering the bank followed by the sounds of fighting before showing the woman re-emerging carrying some blonde woman in her arms, being kissed on the lips, well helmet, and then blasting off afterward.

“National City’s newest hero dispatched the would-be bank robbers with impunity before rescuing bank manager Emma Fielding from their leader in an epic show-down in the bank’s vault. The stoic hero was then rewarded with a kiss before refusing to answer reporters’ questions and taking off for parts unknown,” she read the article’s summary out loud but her eyes kept coming back to pictures Lena carrying that blonde woman and being kissed. 

There was a short video interview with the Emma the blonde bank manager, which she disliked right away, that Lena had rescued and she clicked play while chewing on her bottom lip as she watched the star-struck woman talk about Lena, her Lena.

“It was like she knew exactly what to do… she was so assured of herself and fast and strong and that voice you know what I mean… like wow... when he called me names she demanded that he stop it and then just wow… she was amazing,” the woman babbled while sitting wrapped up in a foil blanket having her ankle tended to.

“And why did you kiss her?” the reporter asked, and she groaned, of course, they’d ask that.

“Well... Hope, that’s her name, make sure you get that right, is a hero and heroes get rewarded right?” The woman answered with a shy smile while blushing and she slammed the laptop shut.

Not good, not good at all, Lena wasn’t supposed to be getting kissed by other women, even if it was as a thank you on the helmet. And who was this blonde to dare say that Lena’s voice was sexy like audible chocolate, but that was not what had been said, no that was what she thought. Jealousy, this was new, and she didn’t like it one bit.

“Ugh!” she grunted and buried her face in her hands, all of a sudden, the closet didn’t sound like such a bad place to be.

On some level, she understood Lena keeping her distance. All those months spent at Lena’s bedside had given her a lot of time to think and figure things out. In that time, she’d come out, accepted who she was and to a degree come to accept what she’d done in Kaznia, but she was smart enough to realize that for Lena it had only been a few days since their encounter in snowy wastes of Kaznia.

Opening the laptop again she studied the picture of Lena being kissed and decided it was time to stop being Chicken-Shit-Kara like Kate had called her and take action. It wouldn’t be easy, and she’d need to talk pretty fast but she could talk super-fast and she was sure she could pull it off. Picking up her phone she messaged a friend who might be able to help.

* * *

Lena was leaning back on her couch just about to sip the scotch she’d poured herself when her phone vibrated and picking it up, she gave a groan. Why had she given Nia 'Dreamer' Nal her number, sure the girl was a darling and had kept her secret safe until Kara had shown up with her at death’s door at the DEO, but the message made her want to throw the phone out of the window.

 _Saw you on the news, how come I never get kisses like that when I rescue people_ the message from the younger hero read and she groaned and checked the news feeds. They were full of mentions of Hope the armored-hero and pictures of that bank manager kissing her on the helmet. 

_It’s overrated and I'm sure it would fry Brainy’s brain if he’d get jealous_ she wrote back and got ready to take a sip of her drink at long last. 

_Overrated or maybe it was the wrong blonde?_ the girl texted back with a winky face and she wondered if blasting the phone would be worth it.

 _Your point being?_ she typed back and put down her drink to read through a few more reports of her exploits.

 _My point being... Talk to Kara already!_ The reply read and she groaned louder, she wanted to talk to Kara but also didn’t want to get in the way whatever was going on between the blonde hero and that annoying redhead.

 _What if I’m the wrong hair color_ she wrote back and stood up stretching in the purple sports bra and leggings she wore under the armor.

 _You two are the worst… the worst I say, well if you’re not too busy mopping at home I got someone who wants to meet you_ the young hero messaged her back with a picture of herself flashing a peace sign with that little blonde alien girl that she remembered from the riot outside the refuge.

Looking at the picture she remembered the girl being terrified at the time, but now she was smiling and she took a look at the glass and the bottle of scotch. Drink by yourself to a stupor or go out and have a bit of fun, it was a hard choice.

 _I’ll bring pizza just text me the address…_ she typed back and activated her armor allowing it to flow over her body and the helmet to materialize over her head once again

Buying half dozen pizzas while in armor proved quite tricky, but she managed to pull it off with some help from the Hope A.I. even as the owner insisted that she take them for free. Lena Luthor never took anything for free, however, and once the money had been wired to the store's account, she went to the address Nia had given her.

Looking up at the building she stood in front of like an idiot with an armful of pizzas while wearing a helmet, she wondered if coming here had been a mistake, but then Nia came to the door with the blonde alien girl hiding shyly behind her.

“You made it!” the young hero declared and waved her inside. Once inside she could see that the building was full of children of all ages with a few humans and aliens as caretakers, was this an orphanage she wondered.

“What is this place?” she asked while looking around as they took the pizzas to a common room filled with kids playing video games, board games, running around or playing with Legos and other toys.

“Yeah, it’s an orphanage, it was set up after the Children of Liberty riots you helped stop,” Nia explained as the blonde little girl followed behind them at a safe distance.

“But… I saw her with her mother,” she said and glanced over her shoulder at the girl who hid behind a chair right away.

“Just one of many honorary aunts I’m afraid,” Nia told her quietly and that made her feel even worse for having scared the girl like that.

“Pizza is here guys!” Nia declared to the kids in the common room who in turn gave a cheer and crowded around them.

“You can drop your helmet if you want, nobody knows who you are here,” Nia told her, and she hesitated.

“And if it helps you can wear a mask,” the young hero laughed but she resisted and kept her helmet on, though it made eating pizza impossible.

After helping hand out the pizza she felt someone pulling at the back of her armor, first a little tug and then a bit more insistent one, it was the blonde little girl with the ridges down her nose. The child was studying her intently, cocking her head from side to side while munching on her pizza. 

“Why do you wear a helmet inside? Is it because you’re ugly?” the child asked curiously her and looked up at her with innocent blue eyes while nearby Nia suppressed a laugh.

“No, it’s so people don’t find out who I am,” she answered, and the child munched on a slice of pizza looking unconvinced. 

“I won’t tell if you want to take it off and have some pizza... I’m sure you’re not weird like me or anything,” the girl promised and smiled with a gap between her front teeth while holding out a slice of pizza at her as Nia laughed nearby.

“You’re not weird darling ever let anyone tell you that,” she said right away and after looking around to make sure nobody was looking she kneeled down, allowing the helmet to dematerialize down into the suit to reveal her glowing green eyes.

“Cool! And your eyes are really pretty,” the girl declared and that made her smile as the girl wrinkled up her nose.

“And I like your ridges... hey, want to see something cool?” she asked, and the girl nodded so she took out her contacts to stop her eyes glowing.

“Wow!” the girl declared and looked her in the eyes to try to see if that was really her eye color.

“What’s your name darling?” she asked and put the contacts back in her eyes with the girl watching. 

“Lorianna Consulia Nerissa, but my friends call me Lori,” the girl declared happily and that made her smile.

“Lori that’s a pretty name, I’m Lena,” she said offering her hand to the young girl to shake which she did with surprising strength. 

“Hey that's almost like my name, want a pizza now?” Lori asked, handing her a slice of pizza and she gladly accepted it with a smile. 

“Thank you,” she said and bit into the slice with the girl watching her intently. 

“You saved us when the bad men came,” Lori stated, and she nodded while chewing slowly.

“Yes, I did, I’m sorry if I scared you,” she apologized and bit into her own slice again.

“Why tho? You’re a human, so why did you save us?” the child pressed her, and she felt a bit flustered. Kids were tricky, honest and blunt and she didn’t know how to act around them. 

“It doesn’t matter if you’re human or alien, everyone should be allowed to live in peace and without fear,” she replied and put her slice down. 

“Are you a hero…” the girl asked shyly but before she could answer she noticed that Lori was looking at somebody behind her and over her shoulder.

“Who is it?” she asked without turning around and the girl smiled a conspiratorial little smile.

“It’s Supergirl, Supergirl is here,” the girl whispered under her breath almost bouncing up and down.

“What is she doing?” she asked without turning around and the girl looked over her shoulder again.

“She’s got this smile on her face and she’s looking at us all funny,” Lori answered in a hushed tone of voice.

“Think I should go and talk to her?” she asked without turning around actually feeling a bit afraid to do so.

“Yeah I think she wants to because she won't stop looking at you,” Lori assured her and she slowly turned her head and there was Kara, in her Supergirl armor watching her with an unreadable expression on her face. 

“You going to be okay here by yourself?” she asked the girl who was on her second slice of pizza already and looking quite content.

“Uh uh, is Supergirl your girlfriend?” Lori asked and that actually made her blush, like a full-on blush with heat rising in her cheeks. 

“No… she’s got a girlfriend,” she muttered, and she was given a disbelieving 'are you kidding me' look by a five-year-old. 

“I don’t think she does,” the girl declared in a sing-song voice and actually pushed her in the direction of Kara. Then the little devil turned and gave Nia a thumbs up which the young hero returned. It hit her then that she’d been set up!

Walking over to Kara she took her time to take in how the blonde looked. The woman’s golden hair was down, flowing over those strong shoulders and the suit of armor that she’d created had been modified and it now sported Kryptonian writing not only on the shoulderplates but down the side of the arms and legs too with a shorter cape fastened to the shoulders. Kara stood tall and proud, dare she say regal and those sapphire blue eyes met hers with what she could best describe as a challenge in them. 

“Hi…” the blonde whispered and looked down at her going from regal to sheepish in a heartbeat. 

“Hi… so you set this up?” she asked with a raised eyebrow before realizing that she was face-to-face with Kara for the first time since after the battle against the Anti-Monitor.

“It was Nia's idea but yeah... I was worried that you wouldn't show up if I asked you and I’ve missed you,” blonde hero answered and for a while, they stared at each.

Kara looked beautiful and it actually hurt how stunning the woman looked. Having promised herself she’d try to be friends with her again after seeing her with Batwoman but that failed with the next words that came out of her mouth.

“But shouldn’t you be in Gotham?” she asked with a bit more venom than she'd wanted and before she could think. In response the look on Kara’s face was one of hurt and confusion.

“Why would I be in... oh I see…” Kara trailed off as a look of realization dawned on the blonde's face but then her expression went from soft and sweet to one of determined annoyance. 

"Yeah I saw too," she muttered and wrapped her arms around herself to ward off an unseen chill.

“No, not doing this nonsense this time! You, me, the roof, now!” the blonde declared with a firmness to her voice that shocked her before she could speak again, and she found herself following Kara in silence up the stairs to the building’s roof for an overdue conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so begins the shift from angst to fluff, hope I didn't drag the drama out too much. And yes, Lori's name changed a bit from Lena's dream to reality.
> 
> p.s. I wrote this thing in like 4 hours this morning which is a new personal best


	7. Starting Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Talk! 
> 
> Kara leads Lena to the roof of the orphanage and they have an overdue talk about what they mean to each other, their hopes and their fears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter contains drama, fluff, and smut!

Kara marched Lena up to the roof of the orphanage and once there she took a deep breath. It was time to be less Kara Danvers and more Kara Zor-El. Though that was a little bit hard since she’d watched the raven-haired beauty interact with one of the children and it all but melted her heart seeing that side of the armored woman. But then her stubborn idiot had mentioned Gotham and Kate. That misunderstanding could not be allowed to fester. 

“Now, I’m going to tell you this once and only once, I am not dating Batwoman!” she stated firmly with her hands on her hips once the door slammed shut behind them and Lena gave her a disbelieving look.

“That’s not how it looked to me,” the raven-haired genius replied and crossed her hands over her chest with a low hum from the purple and black suit’s motors.

“I… Rao! Why on Earth would I be dating her?” she asked, and this didn’t make any sense, then she remembered that this was Lena with all her wonderful genius and insecurities. 

“I saw how you looked at her... how you acted around her and she’s gorgeous and a hero and...” Lena started listing all the reasons why she should be with Kate, but the raven-haired beauty was missing one very important thing.

“And she’s not you!” she interrupted trying not to raise her voice since she didn’t want this to become another shouting match, but failing somewhat. 

“What?” Lena asked in disbelief, with her green eyes wide and her mouth hanging slightly open at her outburst.

“She’s not Lena Luthor! The woman who was my best friend, who sent me flowers and saved my company. The woman who called me her hero and who… died… stopping me from doing something stupid… the woman I’ve been in love with for almost two years” she said softly with tears swelling up in her eyes.

“Kara... I didn’t...” Lena stammered taking one step toward her with her arms no longer defensively crossed over her chest.

“No please let me finish or I might never find the courage to say this again,” she begged, nervously running her fingers through her hair and when Lena gave a quick nod she went on.

“You… you died in my arms… Lena... I felt you pass beyond Rao’s sight and a part of me died with you! Do you have any idea how that feels?” she asked unable to control the volume of her voice now and pounded her fist against her chest while Lena mutely shook her head. 

“Then you came back to life... somehow by using that big beautiful brain of yours you came back to me and that gave me hope again and the courage to do what needed to be done... do you not understand how much you mean to me?” she pleaded and Lena was looking at her with her flawless face trembling but still not speaking. .

“You were my best friend and you sacrificed yourself for me. Then… and then for a moment, you were back, and it was like nothing had happened," she said pretty sure that she was repeating herself and smiled looking up at the sky for a moment.

"Fighting alongside you was the best feeling ever… but afterward, you left… again… and I’m worried that it was because you’re scared of me after what happened in Kaznia, but I'd never hurt you!" she blurted out and for a tense moment Lena only looked at her.

"And... that’s it… please say something...” she trailed off and noticed that Lena had taken another step towards her as she ranted.

“Kara… the person I fought in Kaznia wasn’t who you are. I know that because Lex told me that you were being tested and darling, I could never be afraid of you,” Lena said in a shaky voice reaching out with an unsteady hand to touch her before lowering it again. 

“How… no, I don’t want to know. I mean we always suspected but if we were both being tested then…” she didn’t want to hear it and she’d moved on from that.

“It was the Monitor if Lex is to be believed and he was testing you, but he wasn’t testing me… I fucked up all by myself it would seem and now I got six fluid ounces of nanites in my blood and an A.I. in my head to show for it,” Lena explained and looked at her sadly with her eyes glowing green. 

"Guess I'm not worthy of being tested, uh?" the raven-haired beauty muttered when she struggled for what to say and that made her compassion for the genius flare-up.

“You are worthy Lena! Never say that you're not worthy, and it doesn’t matter who was being tested or what happened. All that matters to me is that you came back to me… don’t you understand?” she asked in desperation and put her hands on the shorter woman’s shoulders. 

“After I woke up and I saw you… fighting that thing my first thought was to help you but then once the adrenaline faded all those old fears and insecurities came rushing back,” Lena spoke quietly but didn’t flinch away from her touch.

“And don’t say that... I’m not worthy of someone like you and we can’t… we just can’t be together,” the raven-haired beauty whispered with her voice quivering and on the verge of tears.

“No, you don’t get to make that decision by yourself. We’ve been through too much for me to let you run away from this… from us,” she stated firmly and looked into that beautiful face with all the conviction she could muster.

“You can’t be with me and that’s the end of it. Look, I’ve run the simulations and with Lex is back he would use it against us and…” Lena tried to explain herself, but her shaking voice faltered again.

“I’m not afraid of him!” she declared while resisting the urge to shake the green-eyed genius out of being this freaking stubborn and stupid.

“But you should be afraid of me!” Lena roared at her with eyes flashing green and slapping her hands away from her shoulders with frightening strength. 

“Lena... I would never be afraid of you,” she pleaded with a tear running down her cheek as Lena took a shuddering breath to calm herself.

“That darkness I told you about, it’s still there in me and I feel it every time I put on this suit. So, if our friendship ever meant anything to you then please walk away… just go be with that redhead and forget about me… please...” Lena begged while lowering her voice with tears glistening in her eyes and she did the only sensible thing she could think of right then.

Taking Lena’s face gently in her hands with her friend shaking her head still pleading for her to walk away. Then she kissed the green-eyed genius softly on the lips, pouring months of pent up emotions into one big gesture to hopefully break through the walls the stubborn woman had erected around her heart. It had to work, she would make it work and then it happened! At first, Lena tried to protest by beating both her fists against her chest while muttering that she wasn’t worthy but then the genius’ arms wrapped around her neck and the raven-haired beauty kissed her back with equal hunger.

“I could never… ever… forget about you Lena, not in a million years would I ever forget about you!” she whispered when the kiss broke and both their lips were swollen and glistening wet.

“Why?” Lena asked with both hands flat against her chest now looking up at her with adorable confusion. 

“Because I love you, stupid and you know what this means?” she asked with a smile, pointing to the Kryptonian script on the right shoulderplate of her suit and she could see the contacts in Lena’s eyes moving when the woman zoomed in on the writing before she shook her head.

“It says… For Lena… I put it there before the last battle against the Anti-Monitor,” she explained and smiled at the raven-haired beauty who was running her fingers over the letters she’d heat-vision burned into the armor before going off to fight the Anti-Monitor.

“You… did that for me?” Lena asked in a quiet and shy voice while tracing the Kryptonian writing that now adorned her armor.

“I’d do anything for you Lena and in return, all I ask is that you give me a chance to be worthy of you,” she whispered looking into those brilliant green eyes with her hands resting on Lena’s hips. 

Both of them fell silent and resting her forehead against Lena’s she listened to the woman’s strong heartbeat and soon they were breathing in unison. Her entire world shrank down to just her and Lena, alone on a roof-top under the stars like it should have been before everything had fallen to pieces. They had both changed so much over the past few months, but one thing remained the same, her utter love and devotion to this woman who had sacrificed everything to save her from falling. 

“I… shit… okay… okay...” Lena the usual poster girl for being cool and collected stumbled over her words then took a halting breath after running her hands through her dark hair while she waited for what the woman had in mind.

“Alright… if we’re really doing this then we’re starting over,” the raven-haired beauty declared to which she nodded and taking a step back from her Lena held out her gloved hand.

“Lena Luthor, it’s nice to meet you,” the stubborn woman then introduced herself and gave her a raised eyebrow, challenging her to take the offered hand. 

“Kara… Kara Zor-El and it’s nice to meet you too even though we just made-out,” she laughed and shook the offered hand but then Lena caught her by surprise after flashing her a smirk.

With the whirring of the motors in Lena’s suit she was pulled in close and this time the raven-haired beauty did the kissing. Gloved fingers were in her hair and she was pushed back against the door they’d entered through as Lena set about ravishing her lips. Again she did the only sensible thing she grabbed the woman’s butt and lifted her up. Lena responded by wrapping herself around her with both her arms and legs and plundering her mouth with a skillful tongue. It left her breathless and by the time the green-eyed genius pulled back they were both panting for air.

“I’d love to do you right here on this roof, but that wouldn’t be fair to you and there is a little Supergirl fan waiting downstairs who wants to meet you,” Lena whispered in her ear and kept running her fingers through her hair 

“Okay, but after we’re done here can I fly with you home? Like just to talk more and I don’t mean too like...” she asked and blushed as the words came out all wrong which made Lena laugh.

“You might be new to this Kara, but don’t worry you are definitely getting some tonight,” the raven-haired beauty declared whispering into her ear in that husky voice that was like audible chocolate.

“Oh gosh,” she muttered and then Lena kissed her again which made her mind go totally blank.

“We… uh… I guess we need to get back down there before Nia… misses us…” she gasped with Lena kissing her chin and nose.

“Afraid she’ll gossip about us to your sister?” the green-eyed genius asked and unwrapped herself from around her body.

“No… I want to do you... I mean to be with you! Rao, why can’t I think straight around you!” she exclaimed which made Lena laugh at her unintentional joke.

“Come on Kara Zor-El, let’s go meet your fan,” the raven-haired beauty said using her real name and she smiled but then she found herself crying a little.

“Darling, what’s wrong? Look I know we’re a mess and this is very scary for me too but please don’t cry,” Lena pleaded while kissing away her tears with her own green eyes glistening with tears.

“It’s not that… can… can you say it again please?” she begged shyly and sniffled to which Lena responded by giving her a gentle smile.

“Kara Zor-El?” the green-eyed genius asked softly and she giggled at hearing her real name coming from Lena’s lips. 

“Thank you,” she muttered and brushed her fingers against Lena’s to which the raven-haired beauty responded to by firmly taking a hold of her hand. 

They shared a quick smile, wiped away those pesky tears and headed back downstairs hand in hand. This was without a doubt the happiest she’d ever been in her life and it was all because she was about to be holding hands with Lena in front of other people. Before they re-entered the common room where the kids were playing and Nia gave them a knowing look. Lena pulled out a pointed purple mask from a compartment built into her suit and put it on with a sheepish grin. Yep she was dating a dork, she decided.

* * *

Lena felt elated, scared out of her mind and like she was floating on air all at once and all she was doing was holding hands with Kara, in front of a group of children and Nia. Her lips still tingled from the kisses she’d shared with the blonde hero and now she watched as Kara happily and patiently answered the children’s questions while she nervously played around with the purple mask on her face. Hiding behind a helmet tonight wouldn’t do, especially not if she wanted to steal more kisses from Kara.

“Can I borrow my hand for a second? Lori wants to arm-wrestle me to see who is stronger,” Kara asked sweetly to which she nodded silently before impulsively kissing the blonde on the cheek and then watched Kara dramatically put up a heroic fight against the blonde little girl who had helped set them up.

“Nice mask,” Nia commended as the young woman slipped up next to her and interrupted her gazing lovingly at Kara being an absolute marvel with the children. 

“Well, Lori was right, you shouldn’t really wear helmets indoors,” she shrugged, and Nia followed her line of sight toward Kara and little Lori engaged in a tense arm-wrestling showdown.

“So… I'm almost afraid to ask but are you guys good now?” Nia asked her and gave a knowing grin when she blushed slightly.

“We’re… on the road to something,” she answered, and it was scary how new this all was but also how easy it was.

“That’s good, guess Alex and Kelly both owe me fifty bucks,” the young woman laughed and rubbed her hands together gleefully.

“Hold on there was a betting pool?” she asked feeling a bit offended and then Kara gave a loud groan of dramatic pain as the blonde pretended to lose to a five-year-old.

“Between me, Alex and Kelly, yeah but it was because we love you guys and want you to be happy,” Nia quickly apologized, and the girl really was a sweetheart.

“I’m not mad at you, more like pissed off at myself because we kept fu… kept messing things up for so long that there was a bet going on for when we’d finally stop being idiots,” she laughed but stopped herself from cursing in front of the children.

“But you are our idiots and you got there in the end, that’s what’s important but it won’t be easy you know and if you ever need a sympathetic ear well, I’m here for you,” Nia assured her and patted her on the back.

“Nia… I’m not good at this, but you’ve been kinder to me than I deserve and I want to say thank you… for trying to help me back when I was puking up my guts in that alley and for setting this up tonight,” she said it was true she wasn’t good at this whole friends or Superfriends thing.

“Hey that’s what friends are for right?” the younger hero said cheerfully but before she could answer Kara had been defeated and was now clutching her hand in mock pain.

“Thank you and sorry but it looks like I’m needed,” she laughed and went over to Kara who was watching Lori do a victory dance at having beat Supergirl.

“Need me to make that better?” she asked the blonde hero softly who smiled and nodded at her eagerly.

Taking the 'very' injured hand she gently kissed it while cradling it in hers with the blonde gazing at her lovingly. Their eyes met and she found herself smiling as she made the boo-boo on the blonde’s hand all better while Lori and a few of the other children watched and giggled. 

“See! I told you she didn’t have a girlfriend,” Lori declared while giggling at how adorkable they were both being and it made Kara give her a questioning look.

“Long story… but are you all better now?” she laughed and inspected Kara’s hand, giving it one extra kiss for medical reasons. 

“Yes, and thank you, you make a great nurse,” Kara complimented her and that made her eyebrow shoot up of its own accord to which Kara responded by playfully punching her in the shoulder.

“I’ve been thinking, if we should maybe go back to my place now and talk some more, you know out of these things?” she asked and rapped her knuckles on the shoulder of Kara’s armor where it said ‘For Lena’ in Kryptonian.

“I would… I would really like that, but can we stay a bit longer? Because I promised the kids I’d use my frost breath to make it snow!” Kara answered excitedly and how on Earth was she ever going to be worthy of this woman she wondered. Only one thing to do that was to agree and steal a kiss.

“Of course, go on, make them smile,” she encouraged the blonde who was grinning like a goof after the quick stolen kiss and leaned back to watch Kara entertain the kids with her powers, but Lori stayed behind with her.

“Don’t want to watch Kara do tricks?” she asked the child and the blonde girl looking up at her shook her head.

“Well, what do you like doing?” she asked and knelt to be the girl’s level and Lori smiled with the ridges on her nose wrinkling up adorably.

“I like to build things,” Lori declared and pointed to a pile of Legos on the floor nearby.

“You know, I like building things too and I'm really really good at it,” she said playfully with a smile and allowed herself to be led over to the pile of bricks. Soon they were making a rocket to go to Mars using a gravitational assisted slingshot around Earth to get there, of course.

By the time they were finishing the launchpad Kara came over and tapped her on the shoulder with a small smile on her lips. They both looked up and probably both pulled the same ‘oh do I have too’ look but she didn’t care because she’d not been this relaxed or had this much fun in over a decade.

“I’ve been informed by the staff that it’s bedtime soon,” Kara told them, and Lori gave the blonde hero the mother of all pouts.

“Aww man!” they both said in unison and that made Kara giggle uncontrollably which in turn made her and the little girl laugh.

“Will you come and visit me again?” Lori asked her shyly and something inside her clenched, like a fist around her heart.

“I… of course I will Lori,” she blurted out and that made the little girl give her a hug and all the while Kara watched them with that same unreadable look on her face from earlier.

“I think Supergirl really likes you,” the girl whispered in her ear and she glanced up at Kara with an expression of ‘what do I do now’ on her face to which the blonde shrugged with a smile on her face.

“I think so too,” she whispered back as she picked the child up and bounced her a few times. 

After saying a prolonged goodbye to Lori, they were back on the roof getting ready to fly back to her apartment. Tonight had been draining, to say the least, but now she was alone again with Kara who took her hand which made her heart beat faster.

“You lead the way,” Kara told her with a smile, and she activated the jets on her back as they took the skies together. She was about to take Kara back to her home she realized, and she had made the woman a certain promise earlier, but now she felt nervous like a teenager on her first date.

* * *

Kara didn’t know what to do with herself, she was alone with Lena, in the raven-haired beauty’s apartment. Thankfully the green-eyed genius was seemingly just as nervous as she was because she could hear it in the woman’s heartbeat when she returned from the kitchen with two water-bottles and with the motors in her suit whirring. It had been a while since she was here last and she found herself nervously looking around. 

“Thank you,” she nodded her thanks, taking the bottle from Lena who had pulled her mask off and was being very quiet.

For a long moment they both drank from their respective bottles and looked at each other. Lena in her purple and black suit of armor, sans her mask and helmet, eyes still glowing faintly green while she wore full Supergirl regalia cape and all. Truth be told, they looked a little bit silly in the all-white living room. 

“Guess I’ll go first,” the raven-haired beauty finally said and with a few button-presses the suit vanished leaving her staring at Lena Luthor in a purple sports bra and leggings which made her mouth go dry.

“I… okay…” she stammered, and it was her turn to show hers sort to speak, deactivating the armor, it collapsed down into the blue bracelet on her wrist. Underneath she wore only a pair of white shorts and a blue baggy t-shirt with a pair of old gym socks on her feet.

“Looks like we were both planning on a night in uh?” Lena asked and sat down on the nearby couch crossing her legs.

“I was, but then I’m glad it stopped being Chicken-Shit-Kara tonight,” she laughed and sat down with a respectable distance between her and the raven-haired beauty of her dreams.

“Chicken-Shit-Kara?” the green-eyed genius asked with a raised eyebrow and to her pleasant surprise scooted next to her.

“Long story… I... can I ask you something… you know personal stuff?” she asked and put the water bottle down before looking into Lena’s glowing green eyes.

“Anything,” Lena answered and turned to face her.

By Rao it was distracting being here like this with the raven-haired science goddess wearing tight purple sportswear. Squirming slightly she dug down and found that courage from earlier again.

“Can you… take out the contacts… please? I want to see your eyes,” she asked, wanting very much to see Lena’s beautiful green-eyes again.

“Of course, I thought you were going to ask me something harder to answer there for a moment,” Lena actually nervously laughed and took out the contacts she wore while as her alter-ego.

“Thank you and you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,” she blurted out and then felt herself blush bright red, forcing herself to look away.

“Darling, don’t look away,” Lena whispered putting a hand on her bare knee and those tingly feelings started up again with a vengeance.

“I… I meant everything I said on the roof…” she muttered and saying that while under Lena’s piercing gaze took all her courage.

“I did too… and this whatever this is, scares me too,” the green-eyed genius admitted and squeezed her knee.

“I’m not a goddess though, I’m a clumsy and babbling fool half the time who can burn water,” she laughed and put a hand over Lena’s on her knee.

“You are to me… you’ve always been to me,” Lena asserted and moving in even closer made the room very warm all of a sudden.

“Can… I ask about the nanites in your system? Like I know they’re safe but like… you did all those things to yourself… for me and I guess what I’m trying to ask is if it hurts?” she asked and squeezed Lena’s hand.

“It hurt… at the start… but Brainy and I have fine-tuned them since then, so no it doesn't hurt,” Lena explained and looked a bit embarrassed.

“And… the A.I. is it in there?” she asked and gestured towards Lena’s head which made the stunning scientist laugh.

“She’s in here yes, want to meet her?” Lena asked and she could only give a nod to which the genius smiled.

“Hope, introduce yourself to Kara please,” Lena then said, and a voice came from a nearby speaker.

“Greetings Kara Zor-El, I am Hope, how can I be of service?” the A.I.’s cheerful sounding voice greeted her, and she jumped a bit in surprise.

“Uh hi, and I don’t need anything right now, but it’s nice to meet you,” she said and looked around to try to pinpoint the sound.

“It’s nice to meet you too Kara Zor-El, according to my analysis of available metrics you are a near-perfect match for Miss Luthor,” the A.I. said and that made Lena blush which was freaking adorable to see.

“Thank you Hope that will be all,” the embarrassed scientist hurriedly said and gave her an apologetic look.

“Of course, Miss Luthor, entering standby mode,” the A.I. acknowledged and she found herself studying Lena closely now.

Looking for any signs of dark green veins or discomfort in the woman at first but her eyes kept being drawn to the woman’s exposed skin, flat stomach and those breasts, barely contained by the purple sports bra.

“See something you like… Kara Zor-El?” Lena asked with a raised eyebrow and in a move that sent her mind supernova pushed out her chest.

“I… no… yes…” she blurted out and this hadn’t been the plan, they were supposed to talk and figure things out more.

“Go on, don’t be shy, after all those things you said on that roof you’ve more than earned the right to look,” the green-eyed genius teased her in that husky audible chocolate voice while pressing herself closer.

“Talk… we need to talk but... Oh Golly gee it's happening…” she declared when she felt Lena’s hand rubbing her thigh now.

“Mhm, you keep your promises, I keep mine and what did I tell you on the roof?” Lena purred into her ear and that made her blush red like the sun of Krypton itself.

“That I would… Rao… be getting some tonight…” she stammered, and Lena kissed her cheek and then her neck while humming her acknowledgment.

“Do you want it Kara Zor-El? Will you let me worship at your altar?” the green-eyed beauty asked and without realizing it her hand was on Lena’s breast. Feeling it’s firm softness and if she had any doubts about if she liked girls or boys more those doubts flew out the window at the feel of Lena's body under her fingertips.

“Yes... but only if I can make love to you,” she whispered and that made Lena stare at her for a moment with shock writ large on her face before kissing her hard on the lips. 

After a few heated kisses and urgent groping which left their scant clothing pulled askew. Lena pushed her down and climbed on top of her, kissing her while pressing those wonderful breasts against hers and she found herself moaning embarrassingly loud. This was nothing like those all videos she’d watched or the fantasies she’d had in the darkness of her room. Grabbing onto Lena’s butt she pushed her tongue into the green-eyed genius’ mouth greedily while Lena ran nimble fingers through her hair in response.

Breaking the kiss Lena rose up on top of her like an angel, pulling her black hair out of its ponytail and shaking it free and she was starstruck. Unable to do anything but watch with wide eyes as Lena pulled off her sports bra and she saw the woman’s bare breasts for the first-time making Lena grin at her reaction before her soon to be lover guided her hands to them.

“Go on…” Lena moaned and encouraged her while moving against her and she squeezed and fondled the firm flesh of her lover's breasts feeling herself getting wetter and wetter.

“Oooh…” she moaned when she felt Lena’s hands sliding under her shirt, with cool fingers feeling their way across her stomach and up to her own smaller breasts.

“Your body is amazing... yes… just like that,” the green-eyed genius moaned when she started playing with her nipples feeling them stiffen at the touch.

It was like a hazy dream, Lena expertly playing with her nipples and grinding against her harder and faster while she held onto much more than handfuls of the woman’s perfect breasts. With her senses coming to life she could smell the raven-haired beauty’s arousal, hear the uptick in her heartbeat and not to mention those moans that echoed in her ears, she would never get enough of hearing them. Feeling Lena fumbling with her shirt she decided she didn’t like it that much to get up to take it off.

“Rip it off me,” she blurted out, and Lena raised an eyebrow but then ripped the shirt off her body exposing her breasts to the cool air making her hiss.

"Fuck... Kara where have you been hiding all this," Lena gasped running her hands and eyes over her stomach, chest, and arms with lust and appreciation in her green eyes.

“Shut up and take me,” she begged surprising herself, and Lena obliged her request by kissing her hard again with their breasts rubbing together.

Lena’s hands were in her hair again and she grabbed at the woman’s round butt giving it a squeeze, trying everything she could to increase the friction between their privates while her nipples felt like they were on fire. 

“More need more... but maybe not here,” Lena whispered, and she found herself in agreement to that statement with an eager nod.

“Bedroom?” she suggested and with a nod, Lena got off her and led her to the bedroom with her stumbling a bit on unsure feet. 

In the bedroom by the pale moonlight streaming in through the windows she saw her raven-haired beauty naked for the first time. Slipping her leggings down while looking her in the eye, Lena blushed slightly when she stood back up and she didn’t know where to look. Her eyes darted between those firm breasts capped with stiff dark nipples, to the shape of Lena’s hips, to all that smooth pale skin, down to, Rao, that tiny strip of dark hair between toned legs and then back up to Lena’s flawless face and green eyes. 

“This your first time with a girl?” Lena asked softly and all she could do was mutely nod her head to which her lover smiled.

Steppping closer with a mindnumbing sway to her hips, Lena kissed her once again and she started running shaking hands all over the woman's smooth skin and it felt like she was touching heaven itself.

“Lay down,” the green-eyed genius instructed her breaking their kiss, and trusting her completely she lay down on the bed and watched as Lena, her lover, pulled the shorts down her legs.

“Oh my… Kara... you're really are flawless,” Lena gasped at seeing her naked safe for her socks and she could feel those bright green eyes dancing over her body. 

Feeling self-conscious at first, but that feeling evaporated quickly and she gasped when Lena cupped her privates and kissed her nipples with those full and soft lips. Arching off the bed she moaned for all she was worth and looking down she could see the woman grinning while sucking on her breast.

“Lena…” she moaned when nimble fingers found the button between her legs and her eyes went wider than she thought possible watching the raven-haired beauty go down on her. Kissing a trail down her stomach which made her suck in a breath of air.

“Sweet heavens…” Lena moaned licking at her privates, and she started grinding against the woman’s tongue while trying to muffle her moans with her hand.

"No let me hear you, darling," Lena muttered with her lips against her privates and she let out a shuddering moan while grabbing onto the bedsheets for dear life. 

Gently, ever so gently, Lena pushed a skillful finger inside her and she nearly climaxed from the penetration alone. Her science goddess, her raven-haired beauty, her lover was so good at this, so freaking good that she grabbed onto a handful of dark hair and let herself lose control.

“Yes…” the green-eyed genius moaned into her privates when she asserted herself and sucked on her button while curling a single finger up inside of her depths.

Trying to speak but with no words coming out she allowed Lena to push her over the edge and happily, she plunged into the abyss of her orgasm with a gush of her wetness which she could hear Lena slurping up which made her squeal loudly in pleasure and embarrassment.

Never before had she felt like this, been this wet and she found herself blushing when she came back down to Earth with Lena smiling up at her from between her legs with something glistening on her lips and chin. Gosh had she done that? Stammering she tried to apologize for the mess she'd made.

* * *

Lena looked up at Kara’s exhausted and flushed face with the woman’s juices glistening on her lips and chin. The blonde hero tasted divine and she could spend forever eating out the blonde’s smooth pussy, but the Kryptonian had other plans she was about to find out.

Gazing up and enjoying the view, she took in the beauty of the blonde's smooth tight pussy, that fact had surprised her. Tight abs like steel flexing with each breath Kara was taking and the blonde's perky tits with their pink nipples rose and fell while she waited for the blonde hero to come back down to Earth.

“Oh gosh I’m so sorry,” Kara finally gasped at seeing the state of her, because no doubt she was sporting very messy hair, a flushed face and the glistening juices that had gushed out of the blonde at the height of her orgasm. 

“Don’t be,” she said licking her lips before crawling on top of the muscular blonde while tracing lazy patterns with her fingers on those washboard abs.

“I’ve never… felt like this... or done that...” the blonde trailed off but then there was a look to the woman’s eyes she’d never seen before, a look of hunger and desire. 

Was this Kara Zor-El, the Kryptonian side of her friend and lover coming to the fore? Before she could analyze what was going on, she was being kissed, demandingly, with enough force to drive the air from her lungs. Running her fingers over the muscles in Kara’s arms she felt them flexing as the blonde moved to claim her as her own.

“Kara… you don’t have to...” she whimpered and not wanting to push the novice girl what with it being her first time. In response, the blonde proceeded to roll her over onto her back and soon a hand that could crush coal into a diamond found its way between her legs. 

“Please, let me…” Kara pleaded sweetly and started slowly rubbing two fingers up and down the wet slit of her pussy and it was clear despite her taking charge that the blonde was still a bit unsure of herself.

“Go on… take your time… darling…” she gasped when Kara gently pinched her clit between two strong fingers and started rubbing it in small circles.

“You were wrong about one thing… you are the goddess,” Kara stated huskily lowering her mouth to her breasts and there was that hunger in those sapphire blue eyes again. 

Feeling Kara’s lips on her breasts she moaned loudly, closed her eyes and ran her fingers through the woman’s soft blonde hair. As Kara’s confidence grew, she felt the vibrations against her clit grow stronger and it felt like the blonde was trying to engulf her left breast with her warm mouth. This wasn’t going to take long, she knew that, since she was so turned on from eating out Kara’s tight pussy and it would only take a little bit longer for her to cum.

Opening her eyes again, she saw Kara’s sapphire blue eyes gazing down at her and there was a naughty even cocky smile on the blonde’s lips. Feeling the two fingers pushing into her wet pussy now she gasped and then a thumb moving at inhuman speeds started teasing her clit. Clutching at Kara’s blonde hair and arm she clamped down hard on fingers of steel and in response, they too vibrated inside of her now quivering sex. 

“Fuck… please... “she found herself begging while squeezing her thighs together around Kara’s hand.

Feeling Kara kissing the valley between her breasts and the woman’s warm and strong body pressing against her side she couldn’t take it much longer. Bucking wildly, she felt herself coming closer and closer to cumming. Clutching at the blonde’s hair with both of them glistening with sweat she gasped for air as she silently pleaded for release and again Kara surprised and shocked her with her response. 

“Say it… say my name…” Kara whispered driving her fingers in deeper, and this was a new side to the blonde, commanding and stern and she fucking loved it.

“Oh fuck baby! Please!” she moaned and begged as Kara had her in the palm of her hand.

“Say it for me,” Kara demanded, pressing a warm check against hers and pushed her closer to the edge but kept her hovering on the brink of cumming. 

“Kara… Zor-El!” she screamed the last part and her goddess granted her release making her cum all over the blonde's hand and fingers. 

The shattering orgasm washed over her like a wave, it was like electricity in her veins and she stared into Kara’s eyes as the blonde dragged out her orgasm until she collapsed into those strong arms while gasping for air like a person that has just been drowning.

“God… Kara... I…” she couldn’t find the words and why was she crying? This was supposed to be a happy moment, but it had been so raw, and she felt emotionally naked that now she was sobbing. 

“Hush now... come here baby,” Kara whispered and gathered her up in the warmest of hugs and rocked her gently. 

“That was…” she tried to speak but the blonde gently kissed her, cutting off her words and simply smiled at her lovingly.

“I know, but we don’t need to talk more tonight,” the blonde hero whispered and pulled the covers over their nude bodies to which she could only nod.

Kara would stay the night that was never in question because she found herself wrapped around the blonde woman’s tall frame and she fell asleep with warm hands stroking her hair gently. For the first time since she was a little girl, she felt safe and secure. Safe and secure in Kara Zor-El’s arms. Her Kara’s arms and whatever else needed to be dealt with could wait until morning.

**A Dimesnioal Shift in Perspective will return soon**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go I managed to keep them away from each other for almost 6 whole chapters, that's a new record for me.
> 
> This story is by no means over, but I'm going on a bit of a vacation for the next week or so and probably won't have much time or opportunity to write or post so think of this as my mid-season cliffhanger. Though I've said this before and ended up writing some chapters while jetlagged to hell and my S.O. telling me to get off the laptop already!
> 
> So hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you all soon!


	8. A New Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new day in the life of Kara Danvers as she adjusts to the reality of being with Lena Luthor 
> 
> Kara decides that Lena is in the one while Lena engages in some punching therapy as Hope and a certain Scarlet Speedster pops by for a cameo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Did you miss me? Because I missed you guys! 
> 
> This is a mammoth chapter written while jetlagged to hell, which I could have broken up into two chapters, but I felt that it ruined the flow of it.
> 
> So enjoy! 
> 
> p.s. Leapyearbaby29 this one is for you! Happy birthday my friend and you'll really love the end to this one!

The first thing Kara heard was Lena’s slow and steady heartbeat, then she felt the raven-haired beauty’s arms around her body and a shapely leg slung over her hip. Carefully opening one eye she saw Lena, sleeping snuggled up against her and there was such a peaceful expression on the woman’s face that she had to bite back a content sigh. 

Last night had been everything she’d dreamed about and more. The talk on the rooftop, seeing Lena interact with that blonde little girl at the orphanage and then, Rao and then the lovemaking. Shivering at the memories of Lena gazing up at her, with her flawless pale face flushed and glistening with sweat and other things. All things considered, she felt like she had a lot to learn still about both herself and being out and to think she’d come so close to losing it all if not for Lena’s actions. 

A quick X-ray vision check showed her that her lover was healthy and showed no ill effects from the night before. Truth be told, she worried about Lena every day since finding out about those nanites that stubborn genius had injected herself with. It was humbling, how the green-eyed genius had transformed herself in an effort to save her from doing something she would never have been able to take back and it was something she could never fully thank her for. 

“I’m not worthy of you but I’m willing to try,” she whispered in Kryptonian to the sleeping beauty wrapped up around her body. 

“And I really need to learn Kryptonian,” Lena responded while cracking one green eye open and if she hadn’t been entangled in the woman's limbs she would have jumped out of the bed in fright.

“Eep! I mean good morning;” she gave a little squeal before lowering her voice to a whisper with a goofy smile coming to her lips as it hit her again that she was in bed with Lena and it felt right.

“Good morning to you too Kara Zor-El,” the messy-haired beauty teased her and kissed her right on the nose which made her go cross-eyed for a moment.

“How… how long have you been awake?” she stammered and felt Lena cuddling closer against her body. Girl soft... some primal part of her mind grunted or maybe even ughed at her from the dim and distant past

“Long enough to know that you look like an adorable puppy when you think nobody is watching,” Lena laughed and kissed her shoulder.

“Uuhh…” she tried to come up with a retort, but Lena’s voice combined with shoulder kisses effectively shut down her brain.

“And there is that impressive vocabulary that makes you a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist,” her lover purred and started stroking her stomach and then the underside of her breasts.

“Gosh… this is… new…” she gasped as her body responded to Lena’s touch right away and the science goddess was looking at her like she was breakfast.

“You… surprised me last night but in a very good way and… wow... I can’t believe these abs are real,” Lena whispered in her ear and she didn’t just blush but felt like she would explode.

“I… I’m sorry if I made a mess,” she muttered and turned her face away only for Lena to turn it right back to face her with a determined look on her pale face. 

“Kara! Promise me you’ll never apologize for that again. It was beautiful what we did… what you did,” her lover said firmly with fire in her green eyes.

“I promise,” she muttered and that earned the dreaded eyebrow of doom from Lena Luthor.

“Louder woman! I can’t hear you,” the woman now in full CEO mode ordered her with laughter in her voice.

“I promise,” she said a bit louder and found herself smiling from ear to ear at seeing her green-eyed goddess in very sexy boss lady mode. 

“Promise to do what? Come on, own it, Danvers!” Lena pushed her and this felt liberating she had to admit, never had she thought to be this open about her sexuality.

“I promise to never apologize for making a big mess that you have to clean up with your amazing tongue!” she declared and the clamped both hands over her mouth suppressing an embarrassed giggle.

“That’s better, now how about…” Lena trailed off sliding one hand dangerously closer to her privates and she was seconds from opening her legs when both their phones went off at once.

“Fiddlesticks!” she cursed when it hit her that it was actually a weekday and she should be at work. Though she didn’t quite remember how her phone had ended up on Lena’s nightstand.

“Fuck!” Lena cursed with much more gusto and they both rolled over to get their respective phones. 

“Oh, golly gee I’m in trouble,” she muttered seeing the time and then a flood of messages demanding the Batwoman interview fifteen minutes ago.

“Oh, what the actual hell!” her lover cursed even louder and then they looked at each other.

“I’m late!” they both declared, and they burst out of the bed, stark-naked and promptly they both froze at the sight that greeted them. For the first time, they saw each other naked by the light of day and again her brain did that thing where it simply wouldn’t work for a few seconds.

“I’m so gay!” she finally declared at the sight of Lena’s pale and nude body while the raven-haired beauty with curtains matching the drapes laughed and let her take it all in with her hands rubbing her shapely hips.

“I could have told you that two years ago darling, but we’ll do a show and tell later,” Lena said walking past her and dragging her by the hand into a massive walk-in closet.

“Here, this should fit you, might be a bit short but it will get you to work," Lena said handing her a green dress and a pair of heels before she could finish taking in the sheer scope and size of the closet.

"Your clothes…” she stammered and looked at the dress that had been thrust into her hands.

“Mhmm there should be some underwear you can use in that drawer,” Lena said pointing her towards a chest of drawers and her lover was all business right now.

Opening the drawer she pushed a few frilly pieces of lingerie aside and then her finger touched something rubbery and thick. Driven by her innate curiosity she pushed a few more things out of the away and gasped loudly at the sight before her in the bottom of the drawer.

“Kara, what’s wrong?” Lena wearing only a black bra and underwear asked rushing to her side and now it was the green-eyed girl’s time to blush brightly.

“Oh… well… you see… sometimes I…” the raven-haired woman stammered, and it was actually really adorable to see.

“You have a strap-on and yes I know what it is don’t worry. I mean I’ve been out for a few months and you’ve been out… well for much longer than I have, so it's nothing to be ashamed about,” she said finding unsuspecting courage and she had to admit not being the one furiously blushing and embarrassed for once felt good.

“Kara…”' Lena said starting to apologize while becoming very interested in her own toes but she looked down at the petite woman and smiled.

“Never apologize for who you are and own it. Wasn’t that what you told me earlier?” she asked and put her fingers on Lena's chin to make her look up.

“Stop being so god damn nice all the time,” Lena muttered and that made her smile before she kissed those still swollen lips from last night.

“No can do, maybe later you can expand that show and tell, uh?” she said hoping she sounded flirty. When it was friendly flirting with Kate it was so easy but when it came to flirting with consequences with Lena, it was a little bit trickier.

“Is that a promise Zor-El?” Lena asked with her embarrassment fading and that fire back in her eyes.

“I’ll even wear the skirt,” she teased back and that caused Lena to jump her, as in physically jump her and thanks to her strength and speed she caught the woman.

“You are... a fucking tease… and I should… tell the world…” Lena declared in between kisses and coming from anybody else that would have offended her but from Lena Luthor she loved it.

“And you know… people underestimate how much I can eat,” she purred, or at least she hoped it was a purr, but right away she blushed.

Lena’s intense green eyes stared into hers for a moment and keeping the raven-haired beauty’s gaze took all her courage and willpower but Kara Zor-El didn’t back down and this was a contest of wills now. Then something flashed in Lena’s face, a moment of doubt maybe and the self-assured CEO turned into a shy girl in an instant. 

“Kara there is something…” Lena started to say but then both their phones went crazy again and she gave a sad little smile to the woman wrapped around her body

“To be continued?” she asked and kissed Lena on the lips quickly before lowering the petite woman to the floor after receiving a shy nod. 

This was a new side of Lena she was seeing, vulnerable, unsure of herself and shy and it stirred something inside of her Kryptonian soul as she felt the desire to protect this wonderful woman swell up in her heart.

“Yes… and by the way, you’re doing it again,” the green-eyed genius said with a small smile and throwing her a pair of black panties from the drawer.

“Doing what?” she asked and pulled the borrowed underwear up her legs thinking that this didn’t feel as weird as it should, no this felt almost homely as they chatted and got dressed together.

“You… get this mysterious look in your eyes that I can’t explain but I know I like it,” Lena said and pulled on a burgundy suit over a black shirt while she tried to zip up on the green dress she was borrowing.

“I’ll try my best to do more of being mysterious then… uh can you help me please?” she asked in front of a mirror trying to reach behind her back and failing.

“Of course, stand still,” Lena ordered her, and she found herself staring in the mirror with the raven-haired beauty behind her.

This felt tingly, she decided, as she watched Lena zip up the dress for her. Cool fingers brushed against her skin before finding the zipper and she gave a little gasp which earned her a knowing smirk from the woman. 

“My oh my, aren’t we the sensitive girl,” Lena teased her and zipped up the dress before ending by kissing her on the shoulder.

“Work… we got to get to work… we have jobs, but I don’t want to go to work… because Rao I want you…” she blurted out watching their reflections in the mirror. 

Lena responded by kissing her again, this time on the neck making her gasp and ball her hands up into fists before the raven-haired temptress pulled away with a satisfied smirk on her face.

“To be continued,” the woman promised her as she squeezed her butt which made her jump and let out a loud squeal.

Staring at her reflection she took a few moments to calm down her thundering heartbeat she found herself grinning at her own reflection. That had been amazing and for some reason images of doing this every day flashed before her mind’s eye. Was Lena the one? She wondered and more images came unabated to her mind of breakfasts together, family gatherings and yep you’re in it deep now Zor-El, she thought.

* * *

Later in her lab, Lena wanted to punch Lex, no correction she wanted to create a cure for baldness, show it to him, burn it and then punch him! It was messages from him that had cut her morning with Kara short and now try is she might, she was not able to focus on the task she’d been assigned. Every time she tried to think all she saw was Kara’s smile, that nude muscular body, those unreal abs and that look in those blue eyes when the blonde took charge.

It made her shiver, not one to call herself submissive after all she’d never stood behind no man, but when Kara looked at her in that way she wanted to kneel and it both thrilled and terrified her in equal measure. With a look, the blonde could make her quiver and that was a power nobody else had over her.

But there was also something Kara had said that gnawed at her conscience today. The blonde had mentioned that she’d been out for longer, but she wasn’t really out, not when she thought about it. In reality, she was a bisexual who used escorts to take care of her urges while putting on a hetero-friendly mask in public. 

That said, how could she be with Kara if she wasn’t being honest with the amazing woman? It’s what she’d try to confess before their morning had been cut short and now she wanted to tell Kara everything, even if it made her not worthy of the woman, but in the end, all this internal conflict only served to make her angry. 

“Are you alright Miss Luthor, my sensors are picking up irregularities in your brain waves which I can not compensate for,” the A.I. asked through a nearby speaker as she worked on dismantling a piece of Leviathan tech that Lex had somehow gotten his hands on.

“I’m fine Hope, fuck!” she replied and then cursed when one of the components zapped her for her efforts. But it wasn’t only frustration at the uncooperative tech but also at herself. 

Here she was telling Kara to be proud of who she was and to own her sexuality when she had spent the past ten years hiding it from the public and for what? To not show weakness or not give some men ammunition to use against her? Those reasons rang hollow compared to Kara’s bravery. 

“Detecting further elevated activity Miss Luthor, has this something to do with your sexual intercourse with Kara Zor-El last night?” the A.I. asked and of course, Brainiac took that moment to step into the lab.

“I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” the twelfth level intelligence holder commented..

“Smart man,” she nodded while biting back a groan of embarrassment and threw down her screwdriver in disgust as the smell of burned circuitry filled her nostrils.

“Lex has assigned me to assist you, but I am… happy for you and Kara, as they say, it was about time,” he explained and leaned down to sniff the burned circuitry. Usually, she didn’t need assistance, but she was glad for the distraction as her doubts started bubbling up inside her again. 

“Did everyone know but us?” she asked, and it annoyed her that their friends and family seemed to have been well-aware of her and Kara’s being idiots for almost three years. Maybe if she’d been honest with herself things might have been different, she wondered but clamped down hard on that thought. 

“I believe the term Nia used was that you two engaged in unhealthy amounts of eye-fucking,” he answered and flashed her a rueful smile.

“Well, thank you for that wonderful insight,” she stated flatly and again he awkwardly smiled as she wondered what Nia saw in the man but she crushed hard on an awkward blonde reporter for two years so she couldn’t judge anyone for their preferences.

“You’re welcome, shall we work together on this?” he asked, and she activated the augmented-reality contacts in her eyes to take a better look at the tech before them.

After an hour of working mostly in silence she had a question that was nagging at her since the piece of tech wasn’t leading any more clues and only giving her a headache as the information flashed before her eyes about the material properties and circuit pathways.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something Dox... why did you help me back around when the Crisis happened?” she asked and looked up, turning off the green glow in her eyes.

“Why? Should I not have helped stabilize you when Kara brought you in from Kaznia?” he asked clearly confused by her question.

“No... but I don’t think I ever thanked you for that... but why did you rebuild the suit and give it to me... I mean but it must have taken ages to get it working again,” she said and turned away from the workbench to lean on it.

“You’re welcome and like I said I didn’t want to see a beautiful piece of technology go to waste,” he stated and somehow, she knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“I think there is more to it,” she pressed and part of her suspected what the reason was but also that old Luthor mistrust was hard to shake off. Alex and Brainy had saved her and she hadn’t been as grateful as she could have been because of said mistrust. Add another thing to her pile of self-loathing, she guessed.

“There are things that will happen in the future… that you need to be equipped to handle,” he replied and gave her a pointed look that indicated strongly that she should drop this line of inquiry.

“Good things or bad things? Because if it’s about Kara I need to know,” she asked right away her thoughts not for her own safety but for Kara’s well-being.

“Then I’m sorry to disappoint you and I believe there is a situation that requires your talents unfolding nearby,” he stated pointing to a nearby computer screen that had started flashing and as much as she hated to admit it, he was right.

“This isn’t over Dox,” she told him and activating the nanites in her blood the black and purple armor flowed over her clothing. 

“You can, of course, keep asking your questions, but I give no guarantee of giving answers,” he nodded, and she closed the visor on her helmet with a smirk.

“Has anyone told you that you’re too smart for your own good,” she observed and activated the data feeds as the motors in the suit whirred to life.

“So, I’ve been told,” he deadpanned and with a laugh, she headed for the roof to take off while wondering if she'd meet Kara out there today. 

On the roof she scanned the airwaves for more details and took the skies with a blast of fire from her jets. Three unknown beings with laser-based weapons were in the process of robbing a nearby museum and the reports stated that they had inhuman strength and that the police were failing to contain the situation. Time for more therapy by beating the crap out of the bad guys she thought and then a new message from Lex made her even madder.

* * *

Squirming in front of her computer Kara couldn’t think straight, whenever she tried to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard all that she could think about was the sight of Lena from that morning. The raven-haired beauty standing behind her, zipping up the dress, that thing in the underwear drawer and Rao how good it had all felt.

Forcing herself not to think about domestic or sexual bliss with the green-eyed genius she forced herself to work instead. The interview with Kate had been polished up and sent to the printers and now she was working on her next piece. Though she wasn’t sure if she should write this article where the headline read: Hope comes to National City. Pausing she stared at the words on the screen. 

“Hi!” Nia announced her presence thus making her jump and type on four sentences in the span of two seconds trying to look busy.

“Hi, I’m just working on…” she said and read what she’d typed up. “Quantum theory and its uses in computing…” she lamely offered from what she’d speed-typed. 

“Uh uh not buying it for a second, but I have to ask... why are you wearing one of Lena’s dresses?” Nia asked pointing at the green dress Lena had all but ordered her to wear this morning.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I borrowed it the other day?” she asked lamely and smoothed down the soft fabric that smelled of Lena.

“After seeing you two at the orphanage last night, not a chance, so spill!” the younger woman laughed and looking around she grabbed her phone and the woman’s hand.

“Ugh… alright come on, we’re going for an early lunch, too many curious reporters around it’s almost like we work in media or something!” she declared and all put dragged Nia out of the CatCo offices to a nearby diner where they could talk away from prying eyes and curious ears.

At the diner she did her best to hide behind the menu while she tried to avoid the topic of Lena for as long as she could but in the end, the younger hero pushed it down and gave her a pointed look. Time to face the music she guessed. 

“So, tell me, Miss Danvers, why do you have bed-hair and why are you in one of Lena Luthor’s very expensive designer dresses?” Nia asked straight out in her journalist's voice before taking a sip from her drink and she sighed.

“I kind of spent the night...” she muttered and then remembered what Lena had told her this morning about never apologizing and owning who she was.

“No, scratch that, I spent the night at Lena’s, and it was freaking amazing,” she declared with a smile that made Nia spit up the drink she was sipping.

“Well, well, look at you all out and proud,” the younger woman praised her and cleaned herself up with a laugh.

“Can you keep a secret?” she asked leaning in closer and Nia nodded leaning in across the table between them.

“Of course, I’ll treat you like a confidential source if you like,” Nia joked, and she couldn’t stop smiling.

“I think she’s the one... you know?” she asked and the look dawning on Nia’s face was one of wonder.

“That fast uh?” the younger woman asked, and she found herself nodding eagerly.

“Yeah, like I never felt like this with Mon-El, James or anyone, but when I woke up with her I got this feeling that I would love to do this every day,” she admitted and the happy sigh from Nia was adorable.

“Plus, she looks hot in that purple and black armor, right?” Nia teased her and she gave a look of horror in response.

“Nia!” she exclaimed and hit her friend with the menu. Other people observing that Lena was indeed hot when suited up as Hope awoke some jealous feelings in her she’d rather not deal with.

“What! You’re telling me that fact that when she puts that thing on and pulls out the sword you don’t feel a little bit turned on?” the younger woman asked while laughing again.

“Oh, you mean like you drool at Brainy when he’s being all observant and cocky smart in that tight black suit uh?” she fired back and that made Nia blush.

“Not as fun, when you’re on the other side, is it?” she laughed, and it was her turn to receive a hit from the diner’s menu.

Before she could get her answer from Nia, a loud crash outside interrupted their early lunch and rushing to the outside, they saw Lena, armored up and shaking her helmeted head rising from a small crater in the road.

“I got to…” she started to activate her suit but Nia’s hand on her arm stopped her and the younger was right there were too many people around.

“Don’t worry I think she’s got this,” Nia stated and out came Lena’s sword as the motors in her suit whirred to life and the jets on the shot off a burst of flame.

Getting her phone out she called up Alex because why hadn’t she been called to take care of this? This was clearly a Supergirl emergency. Looking up she could see that Lena seemed to be waiting for something and she could hear the rumbling coming down the street as her lover's body tensed up.

“Alex, what’s going on?” she demanded from her sister when Alex answered the call and watched as Lena stood her ground with a sword in hand.

“You’re not going to believe this but…” Alex started filling her in but then three gorillas’ came rushing at Lena.

“Gorillas!” she shouted loud enough so that Lena turned her head to look in her direction.

“Yes, and before you ask, we didn’t call because you-know-who ordered that you not be called,” Alex filled her in on why she hadn’t gotten the call.

“Got it,” she grunted in a frustrated voice and instead turned her phone sideways to start taking pictures of the fight. If Supergirl couldn’t fight, then Kara Danvers would report.

Watching Lena fight, again made her Kryptonian side remind her that this woman was more than worthy of being the partner of someone from the House of El. Though she’d never expected to see Lena fight three gorillas armed with lasers.

“Nia stay here and keep the people back, I’m going to try to get some footage,” she ordered her friend as her journalistic instincts took over fully.

Her lover ducked a hailstorm of blue lasers and flying forward using the jets on the black and purple suit she sliced one laser rifle in half with her sword before trying to punch the gorilla in the face. But only succeeding in making the beast flinch and getting punched back in return with the blow glancing of the black helmet. 

“This is Kara Danvers on-site for CatCo where Hope is fighting what appears to be three gorillas armed with laser weaponry,” she started narrating the video she was shooting partly to distract herself from worrying about Lena.

Though she didn’t need to worry since getting punched seemed to only make Lena angrier and what followed was for the lack of better term brutally efficient. Sheathing her sword and making her fists crackle with purple energy her lover blasted two of the beasts backward. Resulting in the smell of burnt fur and then with a flurry of punches she laid into the one that had punched her in the head. 

“National City’s newest hero is giving as good as she’s getting and on-lookers are gathering around,” she reported over the footage she was filming while squeezing her phone close to breaking it from worry.

Looking around she could see that more people were filming the fight on their phones with Nia doing her best to keep them and she flinched when Lena took a punch to the stomach, but she could hear woman growling in defiance. Moving close she saw the armored genius use the jets of her armor to fly forward and slam the gorilla into a nearby building causing a cloud of rubble to explode around them.

What followed was the sounds of combat, but she couldn’t see through the cloud of rubble, but she could hear Lena’s heart beating faster and some rather creative cursing through the noise of battle followed by more energy blasts.

“It’s hard to see with the dust and debris filling the air, but it would appear that… holy…” she shouted trying to narrate the video as a smoldering and battered body of a gorilla was thrown out of the cloud of debris, before bouncing a few times on the street and coming to a stop.

Out of the rubble strode Lena, the motors in her black and purple suit whirring loudly, the shape of the crest of El glowing green on her chest and the woman’s walk indicated that she was beyond pissed off. Rao, it made her weak at the knees to see Lena like this and she had to steady her hands so the phone wouldn’t shake.

“Hope is emerging from the debris and looking no worse for wear,” she kept reporting over the video as two gorillas that had been knocked out by Lena’s purple blasts rushed the hero.

“Look out!” she found herself shouting but her lover had things well in hand. A purple force blast knocked out one rushing beast and then Lena tackled the other one to the ground raining down punches on it with amazing speed.

With a bit of blood dripping from her fists Lena stood up and she had to do a quick X-ray vision to make sure the gorilla was still alive, but it would seem that Lena knew how to pull her punches but she’d never seen this brutal side of the woman up and close before. It made her feel conflicted since a part of her wanted to stop the raven-haired beauty but a darker part of her felt thrilled by the sight.

The last of the beasts had gotten back to its feet and was squaring up with Lena. Despite the raven-haired beauty wearing a helmet, she could picture the smirk on the woman’s face clearly. Then she heard a crackle of lightning and a familiar red blur blew past her as she tried to keep up. Barry was here!

“Coming through… don’t mind me… love the suit by the way… oh hey, Kara...” Flash said as he rounded up the gorillas that Lena had knocked out and when the red blur slowed down the beaten and bruised beasts were tied up in a nice little bundle. Including the one that Lena had been ready to lay into with her fists. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, it would appear that The Flash has appeared in National City,” she kept reporting and watched from a distance as Barry and Lena interacted and oh boy the armored genius did not look impressed by the speedster.

“Sorry about that, I’m the Flash by the way,” Barry introduced himself to Lena while sticking out his hand being his friendly carefree self.

“Hope,” her lover responded in a slightly masked voice coming from the helmet ignoring the offered hand and she decided to interrupt before this got more awkward.

“Hope, Flash, Kara Danvers from CatCo, can you tell me what just happened here?” she asked and winked at Barry which made Lena cross her arms over her chest.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you Miss Danvers but Hope here had things well in hand. I only helped clean up,” Barry told her, and he put his arm over Lena's shoulder which made her worry for the man’s well-being.

“Will you take it from here, Flash?” Lena asked dryly dodging from underneath Barry’s arm and getting ready to leave as signified by the jets on her armor coming back to life.

“Of course, I’ll…” Barry started but then the sky was filled with helicopters and black SUV pulled up all around them.

“No need, we’ll take it from here,” Lex announced stepping out of the lead car while buttoning up his suit and she could see Lena bristling with anger despite the helmet.

“I don’t think…” Barry started to protest, and she could see Lena make a fist as the suit’s motors whirred louder. 

“Listen, Flash, Hope, you did great work but as I said the DEO will take it from here,” Lex insisted and stepped between the two heroes well aware of the phones and cameras trained on them.

“Mister Luthor, any comments on what just happened here?” she asked hoping she didn’t sound as angry as she felt at seeing the man.

“We’ll release a statement in due time Miss Danvers, but why don’t you take a picture?” Lex asked being his smarmy self and put his arms on Barry’s and Lena’s shoulders.

“Of course,” she muttered and snapped a picture of Lex grinning, Barry looking confused and Lena’s body language screaming bloody murder.

“Are we done here?” Lena asked but already walking away from the scene getting ready to fly away.

“We are and thank you for your service to the city, Hope,” Lex said with a knowing grin and again she could see the anger in Lena as the woman squared her shoulders. 

“Hope… wait,” she called out, but Lena glanced over her shoulder before taking off with enough force from her jets to blow everyone but her back a step.

After having to resist the urge to throw Lex into the sun she was finally alone with Barry and Nia and back in the diner. Though him his red suit and her in a green dress with Nia watching them intently made the scene a bit surreal.

“...So why do we have laser-wielding gorillas in National City?” she asked and played with her phone, hoping that Lena would text that she was alright.

“Long story, but Crisis did something to Gorilla City and now they’re sending out agents across the world guess your Hope ran into some of them before I could catch up with them,” Barry explained and she found herself raising an eyebrow at the name Gorilla City.

“Gorilla City, need any help with that? she asked and selfishly found herself wishing that he’d tell her no.

“Naw, we’ll manage, so who is this Hope I remember her from that last fight against the Anti-Monitor, but she’s a bit… brutal?” he asked and as much as she wanted to explain that Hope was, in fact, Lena she couldn’t. 

“She’s new, we don’t really know much about her and she’s not as chatty as you and me,” she explained the best she could without giving away anything about Lena’s alter-ego.

“I’m sensing a big but there, but I won’t pry,” he pressed her in a friendly manner which made her smile.

“Her and Kara are kinda hooking up,” Nia blurted out and she groaned while Barry looked at Nia with shock.

“What, it’s too juicy and no I won’t tell you who she is either, sorry but she’s scary under that helmet,” Nia protested her innocence.

“So… you’re?” Barry asked and she took a deep breath waiting for the hammer to fall.

“Yes, I like girls and boys now,” she stated firmly and then Barry smiled at her and she realized she’d been an idiot for worrying. Though she did like the girls better he was finding out more and more. 

“Cool! Cisco is going to freak out, but I’m sure Caitlin has a big I told you so lined up for you,” he laughed as he accepted her without question so she did the only logical thing and hugged him tightly.

“Thank you, Barry,” she said and after a moment of confusion he hugged her back.

“You know people have asked if you and Kate are a thing, right?” he asked and that made her groan.

“Kate is a very good friend, but no my relationship status is a bit more complicated,” she laughed it off.

“Sounds like it, well welcome to superhero dating, it’s messy!” he declared and was annoyingly right.

After the mother of all lunches with Barry they shared a quick hug with her promising to visit Central City soon and hopefully without giant gorillas that needed fighting. Wanting to check in Lena badly, she was forced to wait because she had to get the footage back to CatCo and get it posted on the website. 

It wasn’t until much later that she landed on Lena’s balcony, still wearing the same green dress from that morning, and found the raven-haired beauty sitting on the couch. The woman was still in her black and purple suit of armor sans the helmet and staring at a half-empty bottle of scotch with a glass in her hand.

“Can I come in?” she asked softly through the open doors as she took of her glasses and Lena glanced at her with shame in her green eyes.

“If you don’t mind the company of an angry failure,” Lena muttered and emptied the glass in one gulp.

“Lena, you’re not a failure,” she said and sat down next to the woman who looked at her with sadness in those beautiful green eyes. 

“Lena, what’s wrong?” she asked now worried as the genius poured herself another drink. This was odd, this morning things had been perfect and here was Lena all moody and drowning her sorrows in very expensive scotch.

“Well for starters I realized that I’m not out and Lex is up to something,” the green-eyed genius said and got ready to empty the glass.

“What do you mean? You’re not out and what did Lex do?” she asked and stopped Lena from taking a drink only to be met with resistance when she grabbed the woman’s wrist.

“All those months ago, when we were on the LCorp rooftop, I told you I was bisexual, but Kara I’m not out like you are... not really,” Lena said and that took a while to process as she let go of the scientist's wrist.

“I see… and that’s why you’re drinking by yourself in the dark?” she asked and again took the more direct and brave approach.

“Kara... I lost my company in the Crisis... I realized that I could just as well be in the closet and Lex is plotting something but I can’t put my finger on it," Lena explained herself though her voice was shaky.

"You'll get it back, we'll get it back," she assured her lover and tried to sound as convincing as she possibly could which earned her a flash of a smile.

"Then... after I took off to fight those things, I mean gorillas like what has my life become? He messaged me and told me that it was time for me to shine without a Super around... ” the green-eyed genius went on slightly slurring her voice and emptied the glass before she could stop her..

“That explains why you were so pissed off earlier but what do you think Lex is up too? And I know it's weird but I'm here for you,” she insisted and put her arm around Lena’s armored shoulders to try to comfort her lover.

“You're... too nice... look Lex has always had one goal, make sure that the Luthors are viewed as heroes and… Kara, I liked it,” Lena admitted and looked at her with glistening green-eyes.

“Liked what?” she asked and brushed a strand of black hair out of Lena’s face being as gentle as she could be while smelling the alcohol on the woman’s breath.

“The fighting… being the hero... when I stopped those bank robbers and those things today cutting loose felt so good. It’s like all my doubts and worries melt away and it’s just me and what’s in front of me but when I start... I can't stop,” the green-eyed genius explained with her voice dropping to a whisper and squeezed her hands into fists.

“I know I saw... but what are you worried about? If you ever go over the line, I’ll be there to pull you back and we’ll stop Lex together... you know, that right?” she said softly.

“It’s not fair that you should have to worry about me,” Lena protested but she squeezed the green-eyed genius’ shoulder reassuringly which turned into a hug. 

“I always worry about you,” she said firmly and after a brief hug Lena slipped out of her arms that small smile turning into a worried frown.

“Kara I’ve got to tell you something,” the raven-haired beauty said fiddling with her hands nervously.

“Is this what you were going to tell me this morning?” she asked, and the green-eyed genius nodded.

“Yes… I might not be… vocal about my bisexuality, but there have been… women… that I’ve had relations with…” Lena said but she was stammering and stumbling over her words.

“Lena, you don’t have to tell me this,” she protested because she accepted Lena for who she was and what she’d done before didn’t matter.

“Yes, I do, look I’ve not always been a good person Kara. The women... I made them sign NDAs and certain exchanges took place and… look I’m not like you okay and…” the raven-haired woman said sounding deeply ashamed of herself.

“Okay, you have to stop that,” she declared, now with her mind firmly set on not allowing Lena to go down this path again since this was their talk on the rooftop of the orphanage all over again.

“Stop what?” Lena asked sounding surprised and taken back by how forceful she was being.

“Stop thinking that I’m some kind of pure and perfect girl. Look so what you had sex with other women before me, I don’t care about that or them! What I care about is that you are having sex with me and only me,” she stated and didn’t even blush this time.

“Look we both have our baggage, failed relationship, hiding in closets and behind masks but when we’re together none of that has ever matter, right?” she asked and stood up from the couch with purpose.

“Kara… I want to be someone you deserve to be with,” Lena started protesting again clearly a bit drunk judging from the half-empty bottle of scotch on the table.

“Lena... you are perfect just the way you are, and I don’t care if you’re out or not. What I care about is that you’re with me… so do you want me? Yes or no?” she asked with her hands on her hips making the choice to be brave.

“Yes!” Lena declared without hesitation and that made her smile as she decided to be even braver and maybe even a bit scandalous. 

“And... if you want an escort… well I can be that for you if you want me to be,” she stated while allowing her voice to become breathier and unzipped the back of her dress slowly, so it fell to the floor around her feet.

Standing in front of Lena Luthor in only a pair of black panties and heels she looked down at the armored genius with a hand on her hip while offering the other hand to the raven-haired beauty.

“And if you have any frustration you need to take out… well then, I can help with that too… Miss Luthor,” she said softly in that same breathy voice and felt the heat rising in her core.

“Wow... are... are you sure?” Lena asked her before taking her hand and the armor melted of the pale-skinned woman revealing the burgundy suit from that morning.

“Want me to show you how sure I am? Go put on that thing in your underwear drawer,” she bluntly teased the woman and the stunned look on Lena’s face hopefully put the notion that she was some sort of pure angel out of the raven-haired beauty's brilliant mind for good.

Turning around with her heels clicking on the floor, she walked to the bedroom with what she hoped was a suggestive wiggle to her hips and a stunned Lena Luthor following close behind. In the bedroom, she sat down on the bed with her legs crossed and smiled up at the green-eyed genius.

“How do you want me, on my back or maybe you’d like me on all fours?” she asked bluntly and in response, she felt Lena rubbing her pale thumb along her bottom lip.

“Kara… what are you doing?” Lena whispered and in response she wrapped her lips around the thumb and sucked on it.

“Hopefully turning you on by being what you need… so tell me Miss Luthor is it working?” she asked, batting her eyelashes after gently sucking on the finger and Lena’s green eyes were wide when the scientist nodded

“Perfect! Now let me take care of you,” she laughed and started undoing Lena’s pants before pulling them down around the woman’s knees.

“Jesus!” Lena yelped in surprise when she tore the genius’s panties off with one swift motion. 

“Not Jesus... Kara,” she giggled and grabbed two handfuls of Lena’s bottom before she started slowly eating the woman out as she stood in front of her by the bed.

“Fuck…” the raven-haired beauty moaned, and she felt those pale fingers digging into her scalp.

With her nose buried in the strip of hair above Lena’s slit she felt overwhelmed by the aroma and taste of the woman’s sex. Flicking her tongue back and forth she then put her mouth over Lena’s mound and sucked on it while looking up into those green eyes with her lover grinding against her face.

“I’m going to…” Lena started moaning something but stopped herself and that wouldn’t do. No that wouldn’t do at all, not if she wanted Lena to get those pesky ideas about her out of her brilliant head.

“Don’t stop please tell me what you want,” she mumbled and squeezed the shapely bottom in her hands forcing a groan from Lena’s red lips.

“I’m going to fuck you… gods I’m going to fuck your blonde brains out,” the green-eyed genius admitted and that made her smile. Nobody had ever told her that before and she found herself liking it. Liking being viewed as a sexual creature and not some blonde innocent girl from Midvale or some pure thing not to be spoiled. 

“Good,” she mumbled into Lena’s sex that was growing wetter and wetter the more she sucked and licked at it.

Feeling Lena shaking and struggling to stand, she maneuvered them around in such a way that the raven-haired beauty ended up laying on the bed with her legs in the air. On her knees on the floor by the foot of the bed, she redoubled her efforts, driving her tongue into Lena’s moist center again and again and it was kinda like eating a pudding cup without a spoon. Then vibrating her tongue inside her lover she felt the legs around her head tighten and her head being pushed down with urgency.

“Aaaahh fuck!” Lena screamed ferally as she orgasmed, arching off the bed while grinding into her mouth and making her eat the raven-haired beauty out harder.

Not satisfied with making Lena orgasm once, she kept going and coaxed a second and then third orgasm out of her lover until she was laying spent on the white bedding gasping for air. Then and only then did she raise her head from between those pale legs and smile up at her sweat-drenched raven-haired beauty. 

“Will that be all… Miss Luthor?” she asked trying to sound playful and the look in Lena’s beautiful green eyes made her swoon.

“Undress me,” Lena ordered her after regaining her composure and with a smirk, the pale-skinned goddess got somewhat shakily off the bed and assumed her power pose while beckoning her to come closer.

"Yes Miss Luthor," she whispered and tried to look demure as she set about her ordered task.

Kneeling she took the heels of Lena’s feet and then rising up and with trembling fingers, she stripped the burgundy jacket and black shirt of the woman’s body. Gasping at the sight in front of her. This vision of her lover now in only a bra and the sight of all that flawless pale skin and curves made her want to drool and she was pretty sure she did drool a little bit.

“Darling, are you sure you want this?” her lover asked giving her one last chance to back out and she firmly nodded her head which earned her a kiss.

“Bed now, heels on, all fours and wait... like a good girl,” the green-eyed genius then ordered her and with shaking hands she slid her own panties down before she assumed the position.

Cheating a bit, she could hear Lena getting ready in the walk-in closet and then returning but she kept her eyes forward. Inside she was shivering, this would be new, and this would be her submitting to another person, to Lena, which was unlike anything she’d ever done before. The bed sagged slightly when her lover climbed onto it and then she felt it, something thick and warm pressing against her privates.

“You have any idea how horny you make me with this body of yours?” Lena asked in a throaty voice and the green-eyed genius’ hands ran all over sides and back making her gasp when they cupped her breasts.

“I have some idea… but are you going to keep talking or do me,” she urged upon feeling cool hands on her hips and then with a chuckle Lena penetrated her slowly with the slick toy protruding from between her legs. 

“Look at me,” Lena whispered and looking over her shoulder she saw her lover’s face glistening with sweat and green eyes glowing with lust.

“Yes do it… use me...” she moaned and in response Lena spanked her making her jerk forward from the suddenness of the smack.

“You like that?” Lena demanded, spanking her again and all she could do was moan in response as the thickness of the shaft of the toy sank a little bit deeper inside her body.

“Yes… more please...” she gasped giving herself over to Lena’s touch and arching her back. 

With Lena's hand rubbing her butt and the other wrapping around her hair she felt her head being pulled up. Then Lena drove herself deeper inside her body with both of them sweating and moaning in unison. Last night had been about making love with Lena but this, however, was Lena fucking her and fucking her hard.

Holding onto a fistful of her hair Lena started slowly moving in and out of her and she found her vision blurring from the sensation of being penetrated like this. Then gently rubbing her lower back her lover started thrusting in and out of her and each time she felt Lena pulling at her hair she moaned as she tried to push backward.

“Say it… I want to hear Kara Danvers say a dirty word,” Lena moaned while she fucked her harder and faster.

“I... I…” she stammered and moaned pushing herself back against Lena’s body in a vain effort to try to get her goddess to go deeper.

“Ah ah, not until you say it… I want to hear you say it,” the raven-haired beauty demanded in a husky voice before pulling out of her almost fully and proceeded to tease her with just the tip. 

“Fuck me,” she whispered now blushing furiously at even saying such a thing though she’d been thinking it.

“What was that?” Lena teased her sliding in a bit deeper again making her whine in frustration at being teased like this.

“Fuck me!” she declared loudly and looked over her shoulder with a challenging look at Lena who in response grabbed her by the hips and did just that.

“Yes… and gods darling... you’re so tight,” her lover moaned and started to push deeper and deeper with the hands resting on her hips shifting up to her shoulders.

“Yes!” she found herself moaning almost screaming as her lover gave her every inch of what she had strapped on while they were both sweating from strain and arousal.

“Now play with yourself,” Lena ordered her through her own moans and reaching back she obeyed as she felt the raven-haired beauty’s flat stomach slapping against her butt again and again as her lover pulled her backward with each thrust.

The bedroom smelled of sweat and sex and she felt her orgasm building and building while Lena fucked her from behind with pale fingers now digging into her shoulders. This was like nothing else she’d ever experienced and she freaking loved it. The grip on her shoulders tightened and she could feel her lover grinding against her now with the toy buried fully inside her body.

“Kiss me… I need you to kiss me... please... Lena...” she found herself begging and Lena flipped her over with some of that nanite infused strength making her squeal.

The sight of Lena climbing on top of her was burned into her memories, the thing between her lover’s legs was glistening wet and bobbing up and down as it rubbed against her stomach and her throbbing slit. Watching it vanish back inside her made her moan loudly and she arched against Lena’s body while sucking in her stomach.

With the firm and pale breasts of her lover rubbing against her own and with red lips crushing against her own as Lena’s tongue invaded her mouth like a conquering hero she exploded into nothingness. Gushing wetness all over Lena’s toy and screaming at the top of her lungs into the kiss in a mix of English and Kryptonian as the orgasm thundered through her body and for a moment everything went black.

Only dimly aware of what was going on she felt Lena shuttering on top of her before collapsing and weakly she wrapped her arms around her lover’s body, holding her tightly. 

“Better now?” she whispered into Lena’s ear and the raven-haired beauty gave a weak nod but made no effort to pull out or away.

“Good, now no more of this, I don't deserve to be with you nonsense, okay?” she asked still whispering and kissed Lena’s sweaty cheek which earned her another nod.

Finally after they lay joined together, Lena found the strength to pull out of her and rolled onto the bed while the toy stuck straight up into the air and she giggled at the sight of it. Cuddling up against her lover’s side she found herself playing with it as they gazed into each other's eyes.

“Promise me that if I ever go too far, you’ll stop me?” Lena asked softly and she nodded in response.

“I promise… can I stay over again?” she asked gently in response and held her breath while biting her lip waiting for the reply.

“Can’t really say no after all that, now can I?” her lover gave a laugh and she smiled before quickly kissing those red lips again.

“But you should get some clothes from your place and maybe a toothbrush,” Lena quickly added once she pulled away from the kiss.

“I can do that and it’s probably for the best since Nia noticed that I was wearing your dress today,” she eagerly said and the thing between Lena’s legs kept drawing her attention though.

“She is a clever one, what did you tell her?” the green-eyed genius asked curiously, and she got one of those wicked ideas.

“That I’d stayed the night with you and that it was freaking amazing,” she giggled and moved her head down towards the toy sticking up from between Lena’s legs.

“I… Kara…” Lena stammered looking down at her when she kissed the thing that had been inside her not so long ago and she didn’t allow the raven-haired beauty to start protesting.

“Now before you say anything else... I think we should fuck again and then you can drive me home to get some clothes and stuff?” she suggested and Lena gave a loud confirmation groan when she sucked on the strap-on as lewdly as she could with a loud slurp. 

Putting on a show for Lena had the desired effect and before she knew it, she was laying on her side with one leg up in the air and her lover thrusting in and out of her once more as they held hands. In the bedroom with Lena, she could be anyone she wanted to be and by Rao she loved it.

* * *

On a computer screen in an empty office, orange letters scrolled across a black screen. 

Targets have been acquired. 

Subject: Lena Kieran Luthor. 

Alias: Hope. 

Marked for neutralization 

Subject: Lorianna 'Lori' Consulia Nerissa. 

Marked for asset acquisition and programming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, that was a lot of words, but I had two weeks to think about this chapter while on holiday and it kinda flowed from my fingers when I finally got the chance to sit down to write once I got off the plane (It took me 26 hours to get home!).
> 
> We're moving into some actual plot soon and I've got a few words for you to hopefully get you hyped. Mama Bear Lena being protective. How does that sound to you all?
> 
> That said I'm not planning on having this thing become a plot-heavy story, things will happen but they are mostly the framework to hang the romance on.


	9. Out of the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena takes a journey of self-discovery through a Saturday filled with highs and lows but mostly highs as she takes a big step in her relationship with Kara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a Lena chapter! It contains a slight time jump, nothing major, but suffice to say this doesn't take place the morning after Kara frying Lena's brain at the end of the last chapter.

Lena wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but Kara was always at her place now. It had started with a change of clothes and a cute pink toothbrush then it became the blonde’s spare laptop and phone chargers, an extra pair of glasses and now she was watching the blonde working at the kitchen table across from her on a Saturday morning as they ate breakfast bagels together, fresh from New York. 

“What’s your plans for today?” Kara asked looking up at her from behind the laptop and she found herself staring a little bit at the vision before her this morning. The cute reporter was wearing a borrowed blue-striped dress-shirt of hers that barely covered her butt, a pair of fluffy socks with her blonde hair in a messy bun held in place with a pen and no glasses in sight.

“I was thinking about visiting Lori, after my appointment with Kelly that is,” she answered and closed her laptop with a smile. This felt nice. Hold on, why did this feel so nice? Nervously she pulled at the sleeves of her Supergirl sweater, appropriated from Kara, which she wore over what Kara called an unnecessary pair of shorts.

“Good, tell her I said hi and aww Lori, that’s so cute. I’d come but I promised that I’d swing by the Tower and check-in with Alex and J’onn but afterward maybe we can go somewhere together?” the blonde hero asked and took a bite out of her bagel sending cream cheese squirting out the back of it which made the adorable puppy that had wiggled its way into her life giggle.

“Is it anything I can help with? I could always move the appointment with Kelly,” she offered and at the mention of the Tower the A.I. in her head activated and her vision filled with readouts of Kara’s body temperature and pupil dilation among other things. 

“No no you need to go and it’s nothing major, look I’ll call if there is trouble… so, are we on for later?” the blonde asked with a smile and she fought back the rising feeling self-doubt because of what she wanted to ask the statuesque blonde next.

“I was thinking… what I mean is that… ugh, what I want to ask...” she found herself stammering and Rao why was this so hard. Hold on why was she saying, Rao?

“Just ask me, Lena! I mean I haven’t said no to you yet, have I... remember the other night? Miss Luthor?” Kara teased her and that night had indeed been a rude adjustment in her way of thinking. 

Kara Danvers in her mind had always been cute and adorable even shy, but ever since the blonde had come out to her as both gay and Supergirl she’d discovered a flirty and teasing side to the woman. Also, it was true, the blonde never said no, especially around bedtime when she did get very frustrated which Kara seemed to love helping her deal with. That had been another eye-opener because Kara Danvers was a filthy girl when the mood was right, fighting back a flash of heat at a memory of Kara on her knees from two nights ago, she focused on what she wanted to ask the sexy blonde.

“Can we go out tonight? Like together? There are no gorillas around, Lex is being quiet, you’ve been amazing to me lately and we’re together, now right? It’s only right that I take you out?” she asked while listing all the reasons why they should go out on a date.

Kara looked at her with laughter and happiness in her blue eyes and then that beautiful face lit up with the biggest smile she’d ever seen. You’re royally screwed now Luthor, totally and utterly screwed she thought to herself.

“Yes, of course, I’ve been waiting for you to ask but I didn’t want to push you!” the blonde reporter declared happily and flew over the kitchen table to give her a hug.

After her revelation that she wasn’t out as a bisexual and about her fears that she was a failure Kara had been supportive, of course, the blonde had been supportive, it’s what the hero did. But with her hero’s help, she’d been slowly working through her doubts and fears and her frustrations with some success. Though she still had her moments and those moments were the reasons why she’d booked an appointment with Kelly today.

“It’s a date?” she asked hopefully and only around Kara did she allow herself to feel this exposed and vulnerable. 

Now, they had shared dinners at her apartment after work, had one Big Belly Burger date on a rooftop after a superhero outing, and they’d hung out, but this would be their first public date. Kara deserved to be spoiled and treated like a queen, not always holed up with a scared little girl afraid of what people might think about her sexuality or what her family might think.

“It’s a date!” the blonde hero happily squealed, and only then did she realize that her girlfriend was flying over the kitchen table without her feet touching the floor.

“Are you flying?” she asked with a laugh and put both hands on the blonde’s face feeling the warmth in her cheeks.

“What can I say? I fly when I’m happy,” Kara explained with an impish smile and a shrug while happily levitating over their kitchen table. 

“I make you happy?” she asked in disbelief and the blonde nodded eagerly. That was like a punch to the gut, she, Lena Luthor, made Kara Danvers happy, it was too much to process.

“Why do you think I stay here all the time? It’s because you make me happy and I can be myself around you… plus you know the other things,” the blonde hero explained and ran those warm fingers through her hair.

“I… I’ve never made anyone happy before,” she whispered, and Kara sweetly smiled at her before kissing her gently on the lips.

“Well, you make me… very…. happy... Miss Luthor,” the blonde teased her in between kisses, and she felt all the blood in her body rushing to her cheeks.

“I… I…” she stammered, and she wanted to say so many things, but the words wouldn’t come. 

“It’s alright baby, you can tell me when you’re ready,” Kara said softly and kissed her on the forehead.

The kiss was warm and when she felt those pink lips against her skin it made her tingle. Kara was brave and digging down deep she found some courage of her own. This amazing woman deserved someone brave. 

“I really like you!” she blurted out and this was nothing like the simulations she’d run when she was consumed by angst and despair.

“Really?” the blonde asked with such happiness in her voice that it made her heart skip a beat. It wasn’t nearly as poignant as the ‘I love you’ that Kara had given her that night on the roof of the orphanage, but it was close. 

“Really and I want to tell people about us… soon… I mean Nia knows and Dox does too and I’m going to have to tell Kelly later,” she replied and no doubt talking way too fast. 

“I think everybody has kinda figured it out you know,” Kara giggled, and the journalist was right, they’d not been discreet and in Nia’s words, they’d been eye-fucking for over two years.

“I know and… and you are kinda living here you know…” she whispered, and the blonde’s feet touched the floor again.

“Is that a problem?” the blonde hero asked sweetly and knelt down in front of her with a shy smile on her face.

“No… I like it… it feels… right,” she admitted, and Kara reached out to lovingly tuck a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I like it too, it’s not too fast is it?” the blonde asked, and her self-loathing reared its ugly head, but she beat it back down.

“No… you're welcome here… Rao! Wait here okay,” she exclaimed and jetted out of the chair to rummage around in one of the kitchen drawers with Kara watching her with a raised eyebrow both at the invocation of Rao’s name and her frantic scrambling around in the drawer. 

Returning with her price in hand, she hid what she’d found behind her back and smiled at the blonde who looked slightly confused. This would be a big step. One could say it was a mammoth step even and screw taking things slow. 

“Close your eyes and hold out your hands,” she instructed Kara and with a small smile, the blonde obeyed, closing those stunning blue eyes and holding out her hands with her palms up.

Taking a deep breath, she looked at the key in her trembling hand, then reached out and dropped it in Kara’s hands. The smile on the woman’s face grew larger again and those sapphire blue eyes opened slowly.

“Lena… you said Rao and is this happening?” Kara asked softly and cradled the key to her chest with a happy bounce. 

“It’s yours if you want it,” she offered and looking at Kara smiling was like looking into the sun.

“I want it, I want it and you can’t have it back!” the blonde laughed and squeezed the key she’d been given.

“I… hold on… Hope run the program please,” she said and the A.I. in her head kicked in as her eyes lit up with a green glow. 

“Program running Miss Luthor and congratulations,” the Hope A.I. announced from a nearby speaker and Kara did look adorable when she was confused. 

“My home...” she started speaking in Kryptonian but stumbled over the words and the attempt made Kara squeal with unbridled glee. 

“My home... is your home Kara Zor-El,” she managed to get out before she was Supergirl tackled up against the kitchen cabinets.

“You are… amazing… like super amazing,” Kara declared happily in Kryptonian during a flurry of kisses as the Hope A.I. struggled to translate the blonde's words fast enough.

“Slow down… oh, screw it… keep going,” she laughed and looked up at the blonde’s beaming face hearing Kara talk in Kryptonian was like music to her ears.

“I love you, you’re beautiful and smart and Rao you make me feel like the best version of myself!” the blonde Kryptonian blurted out and it took a few moments for the A.I. translation program to catch up.

“You… you are my sun,” she spoke back slowly in Kryptonian though she wanted to say that she loved the blonde and that got her kisses, so many kisses that she wondered if she would ever be allowed to breathe again. All in all, sharing a house with Kara was proving to be a pleasant experience even if her doubts were still there but hopefully Kelly Olsen could help with those.

* * *

This was a bad idea, no scratch that this was a horrible idea, but here she was sitting in Kelly Olsen’s office wringing her hands nervously as the psychologist went over her notes. The psychologist, whose brother she had dated not mention that she was currently dating her girlfriend’s sister. But once she’d decided to do something about the things weighing on her mind, Kelly had been the only one she felt like she could turn too for help. Kara was a sweetheart and a big help, but she wasn’t a psychologist.

“Thanks for seeing me… I know it’s a Saturday and you probably have better things to do than spending an hour of it with me,” she apologized smoothing down her jeans. Dressing down in a pair of jeans, sneakers and a red jacket over a black shirt today had felt like the correct choice what with this session with Kelly and then for her visit to see Lori later and Kelly looked up at her with a look of understanding.

“Nonsense, it’s the least I can do but I was surprised to get your message. What do you want to talk about?” Kelly waved off her apology and got her tablet ready with a friendly smile.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard… but Kara and I are… well, we are seeing each other,” she tried to explain what she and Kara were.

“I paid my share of the bet to Nia and according to Alex, Kara hasn’t slept in her apartment for the past five nights, at least, so yes I'm aware,” the psychologist observed making her fight back a blush.

“Yes, well that’s kind of the problem…. you ever since Kara came out to me and we made up... I’ve had this gnawing feeling that I don’t deserve any of it,” she explained and watched as Kelly made a note of that.

This wasn’t her first go-around with therapy and in preparation, she’d sent the notes from her previous sessions to the young psychologist. The difference between those sessions and this one was that this time she was going to be honest. Kara deserved for her to be honest and she owed it to herself. 

“That’s quite common for someone with your background. Judging from the notes you sent it sounds like you had a demanding family life growing up with lots of pressure to appear perfect,” Kelly noted and why did it always come back to her family.

“Is it always our parents' fault?” she asked with a peal of nervous laughter and squeezed her hands together.

“Not always, but they have a lot of say in who we become,” Kelly agreed somewhat with her assessment.

“This is confidential right?” she asked and leaned forward while looking around the office scanning for any bugs or hidden cameras. Knock that out, Kelly is a friend, she reminded herself.

“Of course, you have full patient confidentiality in this office and with me,” the woman nodded, and she took a deep breath.

“Twice… Kara has said that she loves me… but when I try to say it back it won’t come out,” she admitted. 

“I see and why do you feel like you can’t say it back?” Kelly asked and she wanted to throw up her hands in frustration.

“I don’t know! I told her I really liked her this morning, but why can’t I tell her that I love her?” she asked and felt her self-assured mask slipping somewhat.

“Again… judging from what I saw in your files, you grew up with love being conditional and Kara… well, she loves unconditionally. It’s not surprising you’re having a hard time reconciling that with how you were raised,” the psychologist explained and was right, love had only been given when she did good or performed well. 

“But how… how do you tell someone like Kara that you love her?” she asked and that question still gnawed at her at times.

“It all starts with communication, have you talked to Kara about this?” Kelly offered and how could she have talked about this with Kara. 

“No… but we’ve had conversations about me not thinking that I deserve her and well… it’s hard, Kara deserves someone who hasn’t done the things I’ve done,” she said quietly.

“What have you done that’s so bad Lena? Because, from where I’m sitting you’ve done nothing but fight the good fight,” Kelly asked with a friendly smile and she balled her hands up into fists before launching into what she’d almost done.

“After I found out that Kara was Supergirl… I was going to kill Lex, Red Daughter, all of them. I had the gun, the sword, the suit, the... nanites in my blood…” she said and allowed her eyes to glow a bright green revealing her alter-ego since the psychologist had to know everything in order to be able to help.

“Go on,” Kelly urged her paying close attention and she knew that she was being studied but not judged. 

“I… I thought that if I could be the hero and remove all the threats, then she wouldn’t have to be in danger anymore and I’d have my Kara back! But then the Monitor tried to break her with his stupid test, and I had to fight her… stop her…” she declared, and the tears started to run down her cheeks. 

“But why didn’t you do it? Why didn’t you go through with your plan,” Kelly asked, offering her a tissue which she took and gave an undignified sniffle.

“Because… it’s not what Kara would have wanted, but the fact I thought about it, planned it… I can’t shake this feeling that one day being with me will ruin her,” she reasoned and dried her eyes.

“Since… since meeting Kara I’ve all these doubts swirling inside of me, about my sexuality and my actions, maybe they’ve always been there but how she looks at me… it scares me,” she explained the best she could how Kara’s loving gaze affected her feelings.

“Why does it scare you, Lena?” Kelly asked her softly and she had to force herself to answer the psychologist’s question.

“Because one day I might lose her…” she whispered and couldn’t look the woman in the eye any longer, so she turned her attention to a nearby window.

“Like you lost your birth mother and Jack?” the psychologist asked her gently and she gave a nod while fighting back a sob.

“Lena, I want you to do something for me,” Kelly instructed her, and she nodded after composing herself.

“Close your eyes and breathe, just breathe and focus on your breathing,” the psychologist guided her and grudgingly she obeyed.

Closing her eyes, she started regulating her breathing, listening to the sound of the air filling her lungs and the sound of Kelly’s voice. It took a while to quiet her mind, push back thoughts of Kara, Lex, work and everything going on in her life right now. 

“Now, I want you to find those feelings, that doubt, that fear, where is it? What does it feel like?” the woman asked, and she felt it like a lead weight in her stomach.

“In my stomach… it feels heavy like a ball of lead but it’s hot,” she explained and kept trying to breathe steadily.

“Good this is good, now this might be hard, but I want you to accept that feeling. Don’t fight it simply... explore it,” the psychologist instructed her and slowly that heavy feeling began to fade.

“Don’t be afraid of it, make it a part of you and learn what it does to you,” the woman’s soothing voice rang in her ears.

“It makes me angry… how… how do I stop myself from… hurting people?” she asked but kept her eyes closed.

“As yourself or as Hope? Because superhero alter-egos are a whole different ballpark,” the psychologist asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

“When I’m fighting, it feels good… like I have all this built up aggression that I can finally let out,” she tried to explain the feeling she got when she fought as her helmeted alter-ego.

“Why do you think you have that aggression built up, can you tell me?” Kelly asked softly and she again squeezed her hands into fists.

“Because I don’t want to be me… I want to be free from Lex, the Luthor legacy, the need to be this composed businesswoman all the time… I want to make it all better, but I can’t...” she trailed off and opened her eyes to see Kelly’s understanding gaze.

“Who is to say you can’t make it all better?” the psychologist asked pointedly, and she didn’t have an answer for that one, but a very old fear swam to the surface.

“If I’m not perfect… they won’t listen to me...” she mumbled and there it was, the answer that had eluded her for so long.

“I… need to be perfect,” she finally whimpered in a very small voice and wanted to curl up into a ball. 

“That came from a very deep and old place didn’t? But you don’t need to be perfect, Kara doesn’t expect you to be perfect,” Kelly observed with kindness in her voice.

“She… no, you’re right Kara would never expect that,” she agreed and felt herself smiling slightly when she opened her eyes. 

“Now speaking as your friend, none of us expect you to be perfect either,” Kelly said sweetly and reached out to squeeze her fist making her relax.

“I… thank you but maybe you can keep the whole glowing eyes thing to yourself?” she asked and squeezed the woman’s hand back.

“Of course, but for the record, I love the black and purple suit,” the psychologist laughed, and she felt herself smiling at the compliment.

The remaining hour passed faster than she would have liked, but it did help to talk about things with a professional. It would be a long road, Kelly made it clear that there were no quick fixes, but simply talking about what was bothering her felt freeing and she no longer felt like she was simply playing house with Kara.

* * *

After leaving Kelly’s office she made a quick stop at a nearby toy store before arriving at the orphanage holding a huge box of Legos, the Apollo mission Saturn V rocket to be precise, and she knocked on the doorframe of Lori’s room at the orphanage. The Legos had been an impulse buy, but she’d promised to visit the little girl again and felt like she’d postponed it too often. Knocking on the doorframe again the adorable blonde child looked up at her with the ridges on her nose wrinkling when she smiled.

“Hi again sweetheart,” she said softly and stepped into the room but was surprised when she was hug-tackled by the child wearing denim overalls with her blonde hair in a ponytail. 

“You came back!” the blonde little alien declared, and she felt something catch in the back of her throat.

“I… of course I did,” she declared as she knelt down, putting the box on the floor and felt little arms around her neck.

“I saw you fighting the gorillas, they were really big and scary!” Lori whispered in her ear with a grin and she felt herself smiling.

“And they smelled really bad,” she whispered back and laughed as the child pulled away from the hug.

“Hey, your eyes aren’t glowing today!” the child declared, and she had come in civilian clothing this time though the glow could always be turned on if needed. 

“That’s because today I’m just Lena,” she explained to the five-year-old who cocked her head curiously. How do you explain alter-egos to a child? That she didn’t have an answer for and instead she went for plan b. 

“Want to build a rocket?” she offered instead patting the massive box of Legos she’d brought and the girl happily nodded.

Sitting on the floor together, they spread out the bags of bricks and she read the instructions booklet to the little girl who looked up at her with big blue eyes. The girl’s face was full of questions, she could tell from the look on her adorable face and putting down the booklet she smiled.

“Go on ask your questions,” she encouraged the child who smiled at her and again those nose-ridges wrinkled up.

“Is Supergirl your girlfriend now?” Lori asked in a hushed little voice with big blue eyes daring to the door.

“Yes, she is…” she answered the child with a smile spreading across her lips and the little girl gave a happy squeal.

“I think she really likes you,” the little girl said sounding very sage-like for a five-year-old.

“I really like her too,” she admitted and started assembling the first part of the rocket to keep her hands busy.

“Are you going to marry her?” Lori asked her flat out and that gave her a pause just as she was about to click two bricks together.

“I.... if she’d say yes,” she answered and all of a sudden, the pile of white Lego bricks looked very interesting.

“I think she will say yes,” the blonde little girl said firmly before busying herself with the Legos and she gave the child a curious look.

“How do you know that Lori?” she asked and watched the child assemble the pieces of the rocket’s booster with skillful ease for a five-year-old..

“Sometimes I just know stuff I guess,” the girl shrugged, and she fought the urge to scan the girl in more detail, that wasn't what this visit was about.

“That’s… a cool thing to be able to do,” she praised the girl wanting to be supportive and kind but made a note to ask Nia about this little girl in more detail later.

The girl nodded and they sat in silence building the rocket together with Lori every so often asking her about space and the stars. Slowly the white column of bricks took shape, and this felt fun. Not plots or plans, no worries, simply having fun and every so often she’d look over at the girl and get a smile in return. 

“Someone you really like is coming,” Lori declared cryptically, and she was now curious about how the child did that.

“Who… oh boy…” she gasped looking up and standing in the door was Kara, her Kara, in a flowing yellow sundress and sandal wedge-heels holding a Big Belly Burger paper bag, soda cups and with a checkered picnic blanket draped over one arm.

“I thought you two might be hungry!” the blonde declared, and Lori looked between the two with a knowing look on her face but didn’t say anything.

“What… what are you doing here?” she asked still stunned at the sight of the leggy blonde in a short yellow sundress towering over them.

“Well, it’s a nice day so how does a roof-top picnic sound?” Kara asked cheerfully and shrugged as Lori jumped to her feet with a loud shout of joy.

Getting to her feet she felt weak at the knees probably from sitting on the floor for too long she reasoned and not because of how stunning Kara looked. But as she wobbled Kara caught her straight away with one arm around her waist and she found herself pressed against the stunning blonde beauty as Kara balanced their picnic with one hand.

“I got you,” Kara said sweetly, and she felt herself melting, literally melting from the look in the blonde’s eyes and the heat radiating from her body.

Kara was wearing wedges, while she wore sneakers and she felt tiny compared to the blonde, but the arm around her waist made her feel safer than she’d ever felt before. In her mind, a voice screamed at her to do something or say something and stop staring like a lovestruck teenager.

“You… your glasses are crooked,” she sheepishly said and fixed the thin-rimmed glasses the blonde had worn today.

“Can we have a picnic now?” Lori asked with a pout pulling at the hem of Kara’s yellow sundress looking a bit impatient with them being all lovey-dovey.

“Of course,” Kara said with a beaming smile down at the girl and picked her up with ease as the child wrapped her arms around the blonde’s neck.

“You coming?” the blonde asked when she found herself staring, her brain couldn’t quite process what she was seeing.

Kara, beautiful and glowing Kara, holding Lori and their late lunch, with her golden hair flowing freely and she realized that this was one of those moments. Nothing would ever be the same from here on out and she did the bravest thing she’d ever done, she didn't run away.

“Let’s go,” she said firmly and both blondes smiled at her and there was that feeling again like a fist squeezing her heart.

Watching Kara lay out the picnic blanket on the roof and then letting Lori help spread out the burgers and snacks she pulled her phone out of her jeans and snapped a few pictures of the two blondes. Flipping through her photos she saw that her phone held nothing but pictures of her and Kara going back quite a while. Looking up she took one more picture just in case but it came out a bit blurred because both blondes were moving around a lot. 

“Don’t just stand there come sit down,” Kara urged her, and she put her phone in her back-pocket before joining them on the blanket.

“Here I think this one is yours because it’s got a big L on it!” Lori exclaimed, handing her a burger wrapped in a white paper. 

"Thank you," she murmured before unwrapping and biting into her burger, she couldn’t stop looking at Kara in that dress and down at Lori laughing at something the blonde hero was doing with the ridges on her nose crinkling up adorably. 

“Beginning recording of this scene for you Miss Luthor,” the A.I. in her head announced through the implant by her ear. 

For a minute she watched Kara and Lori, the two blondes fenced with two long French fries and she fought back the urge to tell them not to play with their food because it was too precious to watch Kara being a big kid around the little alien girl. Was this was what being happy meant? Could she do this every day until the end of times? The thoughts swirled in her head making her take a big bite out of her burger to distract herself.

“Hey, you okay?” Kara asked scooting over to her as Lori busied herself with stuffing French fries into her mouth.

“Kara… what’s happening?” she asked after swallowing while looking around their little idyllic picnic on the rooftop.

“It’s a picnic silly,” the blonde laughed and kissed her on the cheek with a beaming smile on that pretty face.

Of course, she was overthinking things, this was only a picnic, with Kara and Lori, but why did she want this to never end. Seeing Kara interacting with kids, with Lori, it did something to her, stirred some feelings that she thought she’d long since buried when she’d picked her career over everything else. 

Watching Kara munching on a triple-patty burger while giggling at Lori’s antics she bit the proverbial bullet. With the blonde distracted by the child, she leaned in and whispered into the woman’s ear those three words she deserved to hear.

“I love you,” she whispered, and Kara froze before slowly turning to face her while swallowing a mouthful of burger.

“I know,” the blonde replied with a gentle smile before leaning in and kissing her lips gently.

“We still on for tonight?” she asked quietly not sure if this counted as their date, but she had grander plans for the blonde.

“Of course, I… need to get something from my place first, so pick me up there?” Kara asked with a shy look on her face.

“It’s a date…” she started saying something more and was about to kiss Kara again when they were tackled to the blanket by a Lori shaped missile. 

“Enough kissy stuff! I want to play tag!” the blonde little alien declared, and Kara gave her a look of utter adorableness. Of course, Kara wanted to play tag as well, so they spent the next hour darting around the rooftop while laughing and reminding Kara that superspeed was indeed cheating.

* * *

Later, after saying goodbye to Lori and parting ways with Kara, Lena found herself waiting on the street outside Kara’s apartment building, soon to be Kara's former apartment building. Fixing and straightening her suit for the tenth time she growled because the damn thing wouldn’t stay straight. For their date, she’d picked out a dark blue three-piece suit, a pressed white shirt left open at the collar to show some skin, heeled and highly polished boots and with her hair done up in a tight bun. A bit masculine true, but she was about to take the prettiest girl in National City out on their first public date which called for a bit of power projection on her part.

Adding to the masculine feel she was going for she’d arranged for a polished black muscle car for the evening. A bit vain on her part, but they couldn’t very well fly to their date and a part of her wanted to show off for the blonde. 

“Hope, are the reservations made?” she asked the A.I. in her head and checked her phone getting a bit nervous and impatient. Despite her nerves, she found herself smiling because her phone had a new background. It was a selfie from the rooftop picnic of her, Kara and Lori all smiling like idiots at the camera.

“For the fourth time that is an affirmative Miss Luthor the reservations have been made and checked. Are you nervous?” the A.I. asked and she had to admit that the Hope A.I. getting smarter.

“How do you know about that?” she asked the A.I. with a smirk of self-gratification at her own work since she had programmed the self-learning algorithms after all.

“I am detecting elevated neural activity and you always display the same patterns of behavior while waiting for Miss Danvers thus my conclusion that you are nervous,” the A.I. reasoned sounding somewhat offended. 

“Fine… yes, I’m nervous,” she admitted and then she was struck dumb by the sight emerging out of Kara’s building.

With her mouth going dry she stood up straighter because Kara looked divine, standing tall in a strapless floor-length red dress that had a high thigh slit with matching red heels. That soft blonde hair was done up in a mass of curls that then flowed down over broad shoulders, thin-framed glasses adorned the blonde's nose and a golden necklace came down to just above the woman's pushed-up cleavage. On the hero’s left wrist was a thin blue bracelet containing her suit and she carried a small clutch demurely if a towering amazon could even be described as demure.

“Breathe Miss Luthor breathe and say something sweet,” the A.I. reminded her cheekily and she nodded her head in response no doubt looking quite silly.

“I must have done something right in a previous lifetime….” she exclaimed holding out her hand for Kara to take it trying to be chivalrous.

“You like it?” Kara asked not shyly but boldly while taking her hand and she nodded like a bobble-head.

“I love it, but I got this overwhelming urge to hide you away in a tower right now,” she joked and bent down to kiss the back of Kara’s hand.

“Am I your princess then?” the blonde teased her, and those blue eyes were dancing as she once again knew that she was royally screwed.

“Oh no… you’re my queen,” she declared and that earned her a peel of laughter from the statuesque blonde.

“Keep that up and we’ll never make it to dinner,” Kara whispered after leaning in close and kissing her on the cheek in public.

“Can’t have that, now can we?” she asked and pulled the door of the shining black car open with a bow.

“No, because I’m really hungry,” the blonde laughed and there was the Kara Danvers she’d fallen in love with.

Watching Kara slip into the passenger seat, exposing those long tan legs made her swallow hard and closing the door she ran around the car to get behind the wheel with the blonde beauty looking at her with a curious look.

“I like the suit…” Kara purred running manicured fingers over her shoulder and down her arm and she revved the engine in response with a smirk.

“Oh my, someone is feeling daddy tonight,” the blonde giggled and put a hand on her knee giving it a playful squeeze

That statement nearly caused her to stall the engine in the car before calming herself and pulling the beast of a car into traffic. All the while, Kara was grinning like the cat who got into the cream and looking smugly pleased with herself. Again, none of this should have surprised her, because her girlfriend was a tease, no correction Kara Danvers was a massive unrepentant tease!

“I made a reservation for us, it’s a nice place, quiet, they have great dishes and it’s outside in case we need to take off on short notice,” she said trying to be casual while failing to ignore the warm hand on her knee.

“Perfect, but full disclosure as long as it’s with you I would go to Big Belly Burgers,” Kara said sweetly and kept rubbing her knee and thigh.

“I’ve got something a bit more upscale in mind,” she laughed and sped up with Kara looking like a goddess in the leather seat next to her while gently touching her leg. 

The restaurant was one of those top floor affairs, with a view of the entire city and its lights and she’d reserved the entire balcony for them. The stars were coming out by the time they arrived and two candles were flickering on their made-up table with a bottle of champagne on ice sitting next to it.

“Rao…” Kara whispered as she let the blonde up to the table and then held out a chair for her queen to sit.

“Anything for you,” she whispered in slightly broken Kryptonian and popped the cork from the champagne bottle which caused the blonde to squeal and giggle.

“Wow… Lena… this so isn’t who I am though,” the blonde weakly protested as she poured them both a flute of sparkling champagne.

“Nonsense, you’re Kara Zor-El, the most regal woman on this planet,” she assured the blonde hero and sat down holding up her glass for a toast.

“To the prettiest girl in National City,” she offered to which Kara shyly clinked her champagne flute against her own and smiled with a blush creeping into her cheeks.

“To my Lena,” Kara replied and there was that feeling in her heart again but thankfully they both took a sip saving her from trying to speak.

“What catches your eye?” she asked while picking up the menu with a smile as Kara’s blue eyes were already darting over the items on the menu.

“It all looks yummy… can I ask you something, but you have to promise not to think it’s silly?” the blonde asked sweetly. 

“Darling, what is it?” she asked, putting her own menu down to try and guess what the blonde wanted to ask based on her expression.

“Can you… order for us?” Kara asked lowering her eyelashes demurely again and speaking in a soft voice.

“Sure… but isn’t that… a bit patriarchal?” she asked unable to stop her eyebrow from rising up to the blonde’s request.

“I don’t mind, I was thinking that maybe for tonight I can be your… princess?” the blonde asked softly and unable to say no to Kara she picked up the menu. 

“Anything for you,” she stated and could see Kara gazing at her with that curious look in her pretty blue eyes again. This blonde beauty that had wiggled her way into her life was a complex creature she was finding out. 

They ate in one of those comfortable silences, sharing small smiles and she had to admit Kara asking her to take charge gave her a slight thrill. That the blonde hero wanted her to take care of her and that she trusted her, it fanned the flames of those already deep feelings she had for the amazing woman.

“This is so good,” Kara declared after finishing her second bowl of delicious pasta in a dark red sauce that almost matched her dress.

“Want some more?” she offered and got ready to wave down the waiter who waited discreetly out of earshot.

“No, no, this has been amazing… but maybe some ice-cream?” the blonde asked with that same shy smile.

Calling the waiter over she ordered a chocolate sundae with an added sparkler and made sure that it looked decadent so that Kara’s eyes almost popped out of her head at the sight of the chocolaty dessert being put before her.

“Why are you spoiling me?” Kara asked and she found herself smiling because she wanted to give Kara everything her doubts and fears be damned.

“Because I can, now dig in I can see you staring at that thing,” she laughed and happily the blonde hero dug into her desert while she sipped on a cup of coffee and nippled at a piece of chocolate.

“You and Lori get along great,” Kara said between mouthfuls of the ice-cream and the memories of Kara and Lori flooded her mind.

“She’s a sweet kid and scary smart,” she answered diplomatically but she could already tell where this was headed.

“You ever… thought about having them? Kids, I mean?” the blonde beauty asked and pointed a licked clean spoon in her direction.

“I… no…” she admitted and worried that her answer might disappoint Kara somehow.

“How come?” Kara asked curiously and dropped the spoon into the empty ice-cream bowl before leaning across the table with the candles burning between them.

“I didn’t think it was something I could have, my job came first, my career and I had accepted being alone,” she answered in a low tone of voice while looking into Kara’s sympathetic blue eyes.

“And what about now? You’re not alone anymore, you know, that right?” the blonde asked softly and put a hand on the table for her to take.

“I know… what about you? Given any thoughts to the kid question?” she asked and put her hand over Kara’s in the middle of the table before squeezing it.

“I would love to have kids to carry on the House of El, but also because bringing life into this world is something beautiful,” Kara said softly, and she found herself wanting that too.

“What about… someday… adopting?” she asked having herself been adopted and knowing that the blonde came from the same circumstances.

“With you… maybe… someday...” Kara whispered back, and she felt her heart sore as for a moment all the darkness in her soul faded.

“Kara...” she muttered biting back a sob this was too much but then she remembered what Kelly had told her, that she had to accept those uncomfortable feelings. 

“Sorry… that was too soon… look we don’t have to talk about this if you...” the cute blonde started apologizing but in response she dived across the table, knocking a few things over and kissed this incredibly kind and beautiful woman square on the lips.

“Let’s go home?” she asked after pulling back from the kiss and Kara with a mischievous little smile gave an eager nod. 

When they stepped out of the restaurant her A.I. sensors alerted her to the pictures being taken of them and she could see Kara’s ear perk up at the distant shutter sound. This had always been a possibility, that they’d be spotted and recognized but her girlfriend simply took her hand with a reassuring squeeze before they marched to the waiting car. That was a problem for tomorrow. 

Back at their apartment, Kara made a big fuss about using her key to let them inside which she indulged the blonde with because she was positively bouncing with joy at the simple task of unlocking the front door. 

Once inside she fixed herself a drink while Kara checked her messages, not a strong one, just something to take the edge off but then she felt Kara hugging her from behind and she damn near broke the tumbler she’d poured herself. 

“You know… I’m loving you in this suit,” Kara whispered and again ran those wonderful hands over her shoulders and down her arms. 

“You don’t have to…” she said softly as she turned around because, in all honesty, she would be happy to cuddle up to Kara right now and didn’t want the girl to feel pressured, but the blonde had other plans.

“But I want to and I saw how you looked at me when I got in the car,” the blonde Kryptonian drawled and took the tumbler of scotch from her hand before draining it one big gulp which in turn made her gulp at the sight of that graceful neck moving as the blonde swallowed.

The sight of Kara in that red dress, with that done up golden hair and gulping down that amber scotch made her face flush. The stunning blonde might have let her take charge tonight, but in reality, Kara owned her body and soul. 

“Here?” she asked shakily, and the blonde smirked at her giving a little nod before undoing the pants of her suit with deft fingers.

“Yes here… I want to have sex... in our apartment with my girlfriend,” Kara stated firmly and yanked the fly of the suit’s pants open. 

“Oh fuck…” she moaned when Kara wasted no time both kissing her on the neck and slipping a hand down the front of her pants. 

“I think you should wear suits more often… you look strong... powerful... I like daddy Lena,” the blonde whispered in her ear and pushed her up against the drinks station until her butt hit the edge of it shaking the bottles and glasses with a chiming sound. 

“I’ll wear anything you want,” she blurted out and Kara deftly homed in on her clit while nibbling at the side of her neck. 

Moving her head so she could kiss Kara on the lips she ran her hand up the blonde’s toned leg and slipped it in through the thigh-high slit on the red dress. Right away she felt the heat from the blonde's pussy and she was soaked, and she loved it. Pushing the moist gusset of the hero’s underwear out of the way she returned the favor finding Kara's button and teasing it mercilessly until the woman gasped.

“Who is your daddy?” she teased the blonde borrowing the phrase Kara had used in the car earlier.

“You… only you…” Kara moaned as she pressed herself against her body while kissing her harder before pushing two fingers inside her needy pussy.

“Rao!” she moaned and there was that word again, not God or oh my Lord, but Rao and she knew she was Kara Zor-El's now and forever.

“You say… the nicest things…” the blonde moaned and she kept teasing the reporter's clit as they writhed against each other fueled by their lust for each other.

It was messy, urgent, fully clothed and raw sex, Kara sucked on her tongue and she moaned loudly at being taken. Tangling her fingers in that soft blonde hair she kissed the blonde back hungrily and that made her Kryptonian girlfriend moan. 

“Do it for me,” she managed to say in Kryptonian, they were small words, but their meaning was clear.

“You… first…” Kara moaned back and redoubled her efforts to make her cum right there in their living room. 

Kara had proven many times throughout their fledgling relationship to be a fast-learner and also she’d found out that the blonde reporter did a lot of research. Feeling those wonderful fingers inside of her she felt herself having to go up onto her toes as Kara cupped her pussy while massaging all the right places.

“Together then…” she groaned and in response cupped the blonde’s smooth pussy rubbing it harder and faster.

“Yes…” the blonde hero moaned and started to quiver while driving two fingers in and out of her loudly that if she wasn't turned out like this she would have found it quite embarrassing how wet she was.

“Kara… my Kara…” she begged, and she grabbed the blonde by the back of the head so she could stare into those glistening blue eyes as she pushed a finger into her girlfriend's incredibly tight pussy.

“Yes... daddy... do it...” Kara moaned back in a mixture of English and Kryptonian at being grabbed and penetrated like that, and they pushed each other over the edge while gazing into each other’s eyes. 

It was a shuttering orgasm that wracked both their bodies and her knees gave out first, but Kara kept her upright with her muscles flexing against the strain The wetness that signaled the blonde’s orgasm coated her hand and she felt herself squeezing down on the woman’s wonderful fingers that were curled up inside of her. With both of them breathing heavily and with sweat running down their faces they gazed at each other while they slowly recovered.

“Two years… can’t believe we didn’t do that for two years…” Kara giggled and withdrew her fingers.

“Yeah, we were idiots,” she agreed with a grin and kissed the blonde on the cheek as her hero was literally glowing.

“But we’re smarter now, right?” the blonde asked and plopped herself down on the nearby couch. 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she laughed and fixed her suit before pouring them each a drink.

“Hey, I’m pretty smart you know,” Kara protested but accepted the tumbler of scotch with a smile.

“Trust me I know,” she agreed and sat down next to her girlfriend, that word still felt strange.

“To us?” she asked holding up her glass and Kara touched her glass to it with a smile.

“To us,” the blonde agreed and took a sip of the drink before right away making a disgusted face.

“Yuck!” she then declared and put the tumbler down with a sheepish blush.

“Hold on now! You gulped down that same scotch down not five minutes ago!” she exclaimed, and the blonde gave a nonchalant shrug.

“Oh, that was just to turn you on, I really hate that stuff!” Kara laughed and leaned against her shoulder.

“I’m dating the weirdest girl,” she commented and took up both glasses, gave herself a toast before emptying both tumblers. More scotch for her!

“But the prettiest right?” Kara asked sounding tired while batting her eyelashes up at her and she gave a sigh.

“Yes… the prettiest,” she agreed and put her arm around the blonde who cuddled closer to her on the couch.

“Yay! So, guess I don’t have to sneakily plot to stay over tonight uh?” the blonde hero asked, and she leaned down placing a kiss on top of that blonde head.

“Nope… I still can’t believe we’re really doing this… you and me living together… talking about kids and… and she’s asleep,” she chuckled looking down at the pretty blonde snuggled up against her shoulder snoring gently

“Hope… hold my messages,” she instructed the A.I. in her head and carefully she picked up Kara’s body cheating a bit with the nanites in her blood augmenting her strength once again.

“Of course and shall I add Miss Danvers’ dietary needs to the shopping list?” the A.I. quietly asked as she carried her precious cargo to the bedroom.

“Yes please, also pull up any files on Lori you can find,” she instructed the A.I. as she laid Kara down on their bed before gently pulling the blonde’s heels off and putting them neatly on the floor.

“Affirmative and Miss Luthor, I like them too,” the A.I. informed her and there was almost a softness to its voice.

Taking off her jacket and vest she kicked off her boots before crawling into bed next to Kara’s sleeping body. Pulling the covers over them both she gave the sleeping blonde a kiss on the cheek which earned her a soft murmur. It felt good to be stepping out of the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I have no idea if I'm using the term 'daddy' correctly in this chapter. It's something I picked up from the Supercorp Instagrams (you guys are freaks but I love you!) and wanted to test it out. If somebody more woke to this then I am can tell me if I'm using it right or if I'm totally wrong and showing my age please let me know!
> 
> Second I've never written Kelly before, don't remember her much from the show on the account of me hating it now, so if she's a bit off then please let me know too.
> 
> Thirdly I hope I wrote Lena's journey to better herself well since I've dealt with some of the same issues she faces in this chapter and they suck.


	10. Instincts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day trip to the Fortress of Solitude turns into one of the worst days of Lena and Kara's lives together before it's over.

In the Fortress of Solitude. Kara was working on her suit where it lay on a crystalline workbench with her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. This wasn’t something she advertised, but she was smart, in fact, she understood pretty much everything Lena and Brainy talked about and then some. And today she was letting a very special person in on that secret. Watching her wrapped up in a luxurious fur coat over her sleek black and purple suit of armor was a stunned looking Lena Luthor. Her live-in girlfriend with her pretty green eyes wide and her red painted lips hanging open a little bit. 

“Stop looking at me like that and hand me that nanoscopic adjuster, that’s the gold and blue cylinder to your left,” she laughed and mutedly the raven-haired beauty handed her the requested tool.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile while working on the breastplate of her blue and red suit of armor. Today she'd worn a dark blue Kryptonian jumpsuit underneath it for modesty's sake.

“When you asked me to come up here saying it was a surprise… well, I thought I would be the one helping you or you know you just wanted to get away from the city for a bit,” Lena finally said and looked at her with admiration in those amazing green eyes and with a pink blush to her porcelain white cheeks. The Fortress wasn’t the warmest of place after all.

“You are helping! This place needs somebody super pretty to brighten it up and I need an assistant,” she praised her girlfriend who stood across the workbench from her and gave her a wink.

“Flattery aside but thank you. How come… you’ve never done this before or showed anyone?” Lena asked curiously and watched her work with keen interest, but her girlfriend did smile at being called super pretty. Nailed it! Kara thought to herself. 

“I’m showing you because there should be no more secrets between us and as for why I don’t really broadcast this fact? For one, this isn’t something Lex should know about and I was raised not to draw attention to myself, remember,” she explained with a shrug and pulled off the white glowing crest of the House of El from the chest of her suit.

This trip had been planned in her mind for a while. Now that she and Lena lived together she wanted to let the raven-haired beauty in on all aspects of her life both human and Kryptonian. Which involved a lot of Disney movies and eating take-out along with Kryptonian language and cultural lessons and now this object lesson. 

“I know it’s a stupid question and that intelligence can’t be quantified, but just how smart are you?” the green-eyed genius asked and ran her black-gloved fingers over the plates of armor on the shoulders of the suit that were covered in gold-in-laid Kryptonian script. A small vanity upgrade she’d done and was slowly adding more and more to as time allowed.

“Your suit’s power-source is inefficient you know. You should replace that central power battery in the chest with micro fusion generators at the big joints. That way you would get more stability with the added benefit of increasing the redundancy of the suit’s systems,” she rattled off what she’d observed during the many X-ray scans she’d done of her girlfriend’s sleek black suit of armor. Not all of them for investigatory purposes.

“Well, fuck me, those glasses hide a lot it would seem,” Lena exclaimed breathlessly and looked at her with wide eyes. A look of total shock on her face.

“Maybe later, but for now, hold this for me please,” she instructed the raven-haired beauty handing her the detached chest-piece so she could rewire it. 

“But what are you doing to the suit? Not that I’m questioning your skills, but I built it and there shouldn’t be any weaknesses,” the green-eyed genius asked while playing assistant.

“You’ll see… now blue wire to red wire, right?” she joked and rewired the piece to set the transponder in it to the right frequency.

“Hope, can you hear me?” she asked the A.I. that resided at least partly inside of Lena’s head and implants.

“I can hear you Mistress Zor-El. What do you require?” the A.I. asked through the Fortress’ systems where it had been making friends with it. When she said that she wanted no secrets between them she meant it and that extended to Lena's A.I. companion. 

“I’ve given you access to my armor’s systems on the five gigahertz frequency, can you check for me that you have access to the communications array?” she asked, and Lena’s jaw hit the floor.

“Accessing your systems and yes linking with your armor’s onboard computer now,” the A.I. declared and she gave Lena a satisfied smirk.

“Now when we’re in battle together we can talk without shouting at each other and Hope has access to my suit’s life-sign sensors too,” she explained to the raven-haired beauty and took the chest piece back from her hands to fasten it back into place.

“I’m dating an incredible genius,” Lena whispered while clearly still somewhat stunned but with a very pretty smile on her red lips.

“No, I’m dating a genius, you’re dating a Kryptonian,” she corrected the green-eyed genius.

Humming she started touching up the gold-in-laid Kryptonian writing that outlined armor's shoulders and ran down the side of the arms and legs. The inscriptions were, in a way, her tattoos. Not that she would ever be brave enough to get those!

Lena watched her work with this adorable awed look on her pale face and she quite enjoyed that she could surprise the green-eyed genius like this. Touching up the ‘For Lena’ written on the left shoulder and then the ‘Stronger Together’ on the right one from a beating she’d taken in a recent battle she looked up when her lover asked her another question.

“Why the Kryptonian engravings? Not that I’m complaining that you got my name on your suit,” Lena asked after watching her working and she gave the pale-skinned woman a dazzling smile. She loved how awesome her life was now and how she could talk freely with Lena like this.

“It’s because it’s who I am, I’m Kara Danvers, but a part of me will always be Kara Zor-El,” she explained, and the raven-haired beauty nodded but then smirked.

“I’m dating two people! How scandalous!” Lena laughed and she pointed the tool she’d been using at her cheeky assistant in mock outrage.

“No, you’re living with me and only me,” she said a bit too firmly as she felt her jealous side bubbling to the surface. She finished the newest addition to her suit by adding a prayer to Rao down the side of the left leg. 

“Yes, Mistress Zor-El,” the raven-haired beauty said demurely using the same turn of phrase that the Hope A.I. had used and she had to fight back the urge to kiss the woman because there was still work to do.

“Better, now, let me take a look at you,” she said and turned her full attention to her curvy girlfriend and her suit.

“Me? Whatever for darling?” Lena asked with a raised eyebrow but dropped the fur coat she was wearing over her sleek suit of armor to the floor of the fortress before putting her hands on those shapely hips.

“I want to make sure your nanites aren’t acting up and I detected a vibration in your left elbow motor on the flight over,” she explained and used her X-ray in tandem with her microscopic vision to check over Lena’s suit.

“Quick what is the square root of forty-six-thousand-five-hundred-twenty-six?” Lena asked randomly but playfully, and she scoffed.

“Two-hundred-and-six-point-three-o-eight,” she laughed as she walked around the crystalline workbench and grabbed another tool from the tray. 

“Is it weird that I’m super turned on right now?” the raven-haired beauty asked while she hummed and tuned the left elbow motor of her girlfriend's power-suit.

“I expect you to be turned on all the time while in my presence,” she teased and allowed her heat-vision to flash briefly in her eyes.

“Yes, Mistress Zor-El,” Lena teased her right back again and patiently waited for her to finish working on the black and purple suit.

“Cheekiness from you, now I’ve seen everything,” she laughed and looked at the breastplate of Lena’s armor, more importantly, the green glowing outline of the House of El crest.

“You know you could get a crest or a logo of your own?” she suggested and alright she wasn’t only looking at the breastplate. Her girlfriend was busty, and she loved it. What she really wanted to suggest was that Lena would wear the crest of the House of El but asking that felt a bit presumptuous not to mention early in their relationship. 

“That would make things… too official. I’m still not convinced that I’m a hero you know,” the raven-haired beauty answered.

“You’re so a hero and Lori thinks you are the coolest hero in National City,” she countered and that made Lena smile brightly at the mention of their little alien. 

“Oh no, she’s still Supergirl’s number one fan,” the green-eyed genius protested and they smiled at each other at the thought of the little blonde alien which they visited every Saturday. 

“Come on, she built a purple and black gauntlet out of Legos and tried to smite me with it!” she laughed and the softness that came over Lena’s face whenever they talked about that little girl made her heart soar.

“Only because you were hogging the potstickers,” Lena countered, and she double-checked the black suit and Lena over one more time.

“Well, Kara doesn’t share food,” she cried out dramatically and put her hands on Lena’s hips while gazing lovingly down at the shorter woman. 

“Oh, that I know for I will never again try to take the last French-fry,” Lena laughed and put both arms around her neck lovingly. Having to stand up on her toes to do so but that’s what she loved about her petite girlfriend too. 

“Do I get a clean bill of health?” the raven-haired beauty asked with a raised eyebrow and she did one more thorough check of the scientist's body just to be sure.

Nanites were flowing through Lena’s blood at a steady pace. She could see the implants by the raven-haired beauty’s jaw and at the base of her skull and those seemed to be in order. Then she got distracted by the pale skin underneath the black and purple suit of armor and she finished taking stock of her girlfriend.

“You’re perfect, though you should eat less Kale,” she joked and kissed her girlfriend on the forehead.

“Ha! Shut up and kiss me properly already,” Lena burst out laughing and she leaned down to capture those full red lips with hers in a sweet and loving kiss.

“Want to go visit Lori later?” she asked, and the raven-haired beauty gave a quick and eager nod that was almost out of character for the brilliant woman.

They often visited the orphanage. In fact, they visited often enough that they were called the regulars around the place. The soft look in Lena’s green eyes made her see forever and then the raven-haired beauty, her genius, surprised her with her next few words. 

“Kara… should we look into adopting her?” Lena asked quietly and looked up at her with vulnerable green eyes.

“Lena… babe… we don’t live the simplest of lives you know,” she replied softly hating to be the voice of reason. 

In her mind, she was running through all the scenarios of the three of them forming a little family at superspeed. White picket fences, a minivan, soccer practices but those were dreams and she’d learned a few hard lessons about reality. 

“I know… I’ve done the research and we’re not ideal candidates to adopt and we've only started living together, but I could use some of that Luthor money to grease the wheels,” the green-eyed genius reasoned, and it was hard not to shout yes.

“It’s a big step and she’d be in danger often, are you sure we’re ready for that?” she asked and stroked Lena’s pale cheek with a small smile.

“I don’t know… she’s safe where she is now and we’re just one Crisis away from things going to hell again, but can we think about it please?” Lena asked in that small voice that her girlfriend sometimes took on when she was feeling very vulnerable.

“Of course, until then we can visit her all the time,” she promised and hugged her girlfriend tightly even lifting her up from the floor. 

“Kara, Lena, come in? Are you dorks there?” Alex’s voice rang out from both of their suits right about when she was going to do something sexy with Lena in her arms.

“Yes, we’re here Alex,” she giggled because whenever Alex called them Lena would start nibbling at her neck.

“Is that good for nothing girlfriend of yours being a perv again?” Alex asked with a deep tired sigh which made Lena laugh.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Former Director Danvers,” the raven-haired beauty called out. Alex had quit the DEO recently and she didn’t blame her sister one bit. 

“This is punishment for my past deeds I’m sure of it… look we need you guys back in the Tower somethings come up,” her sister announced and in a split second they were both all business. With her pulling her armor back on and Lena activating her helmet. 

“What is it?” she asked as she fastened the cape back to the shoulders of her armor while Lena’s jets came to life on the back of the sleek black and purple suit.

“Old StarLab space station that should have been in a stable parking orbit isn’t anymore and everything points to it being purposely set to crash close or in National City,” Alex filled them in and with a shared nod they finished suiting up. Catching falling things from space that was her specialty after all. 

“We’re on our way,” she said and turned to face Lena who was moving invisible objects around in front of her face at a great speed no doubt using the interface built into her suit’s helmet.

“Are you coming, Hope?” she teased the now armored genius and somehow Lena could give her a smoldering look through the faceplate of the helmet. 

To her surprise, something rose up out of the workbench next to them. It was a golden circlet an inch high and sporting Kryptonian circuitry on the inside of the band. Lena had accessed the fortress’ systems and made this for she was sure of it.

“Put this on,” Lena told her in a matter of fact tone and handed her the golden circlet which was based on an old Kryptonian design.

“What is it?” she asked curiously but accepted the gift. The craftsmanship was exquisite and again she was reminded why she found Lena so worthy.

“I borrowed the Fortress’ fabrication system. It’s a head-up display generator, will feed you reentry trajectories among other things and might help,” Lena explained sounding very matter of fact about what she'd done. Like this wasn't something she’d whipped up in the span of a few minutes and she put the circlet on with a grin. 

In front of her eyes, she could see information about air-pressure, satellite signals and various other data streams as semi-translucent holograms along with data about the errand space-station slowly losing its orbit. They still had time according to these readings. 

“Now you’re a queen,” the helmeted genius observed, and she found herself smiling at that comment.

“Come on… daddy. I’ll race you to National City,” she declared and glanced at herself in a nearby reflective surface. The circlet indeed looked Kryptonian, like something her father would have worn, and she smiled. 

“You’re on Zor-El. Hope, warm up the afterburners!” Lena ordered the A.I. and the race back to National City was on.

* * *

Landing in the Tower their new headquarters, Lena pulled back on the power to her jets because J’onn got upset whenever she blew his stuff out of place and watched as Kara ran up to her sister while she kept to herself. This whole being a member of a superhero team wasn’t something she was fully comfortable with yet. They waited for the rest of the team to arrive.

“Nice headband,” Alex, wearing tight jeans and an even tighter black t-shirt with an alien weapon on her hip, commented wryly to Kara at the headband she'd given the blonde hero.

She watched the sisters interacting with her arms crossed over her chest while the helmet dematerialized from around her head leaving only her purple mask. The mask was stupid, but necessary if she wanted to maintain any resemblance of a secret identity. 

“Lena gave it to me and it’s a Kryptonian circlet,” the blonde hero happily corrected her sister and flashed her a dazzling smile over her shoulder.

The upside of her and Kara being together was that now it didn’t feel weird and awkward whenever Kara smiled at her and she could smile back. Plus, it had the side benefit of driving Alex absolutely nuts if they did it too often.

“I wish someone would give me bling like that,” Nia joked and joined her on what was often called Lena’s side of the tower. The young woman was wearing her blue and silver suit and was all smiles as always.

The younger hero was quickly becoming one of her best friends and didn’t seem to mind when she was grumpy. Instead, she was always there with a smile and a friendly comment. Yeah, Nia was a sweetheart and having a friend felt kind of nice. 

“Lena,” J’onn greeted her with a nod as he entered the Tower in his Martian armor from the side-room and she nodded back at the Martian Manhunter.

“J’onn,” she curtly responded watching as the Martian joined Kara and Alex by the bank of screens set up by the far wall.

J’onn was an interesting man, but she hadn’t been able to talk to him much since she started dating Kara let alone after moving in with the blonde. But as the Danvers sisters’ space-dad she knew that a talk with the man was overdue. 

“Okay listen up! This is the plan people,” Alex declared after a short discussion between the trio and they gathered around the screens that J’onn had set up.

“Kara, you're our best bet for this kind of mission. Think you can fly up there and redirect it into the pacific?” the former Director of the DEO asked her sister who nodded.

“Easy, but J’onn should stay in low orbit in case I run into any kind of trouble,” the blonde hero declared and tapped the circlet she’d given her to activate it making a thin red band of light form over those blue eyes.

“What about us? Feeling a bit like chopped liver here,” Nia asked, playing around with a few strands of blue energy while she quietly observed things letting the Danvers sisters take the lead.

“You two stay here, this might be a ruse and we need people on the ground if this is all a big misdirection,” Alex reasoned to which Nia nodded and she gave a reluctant nod of her own.

“Let’s do this,” Kara declared excitedly and clapped her hands. The woman really was a giant excitable bundle of positivity.

Smiling, she walked up to the tall blonde hero and in a rather public display of affection and softness she adjusted Kara’s cape. Then she fixed the slightly crooked circlet she’d given the blonde while making sure it was aligned correctly before putting her hands on the crest on her hero’s broad chest.

“Kara… be careful,” she spoke softly to the blonde and in response, the impulsive hero grabbed her face before proceeding to give her a searing hot kiss not caring who saw them.

“Do you have too!” Alex wailed in horror and turned away trying to ignore her and her adoptive sister kissing.

“Shut up it’s sweet!” Nia laughed and used one of her blue projections to turn the former Director around against her will with her eyes tightly shut.

“I’ll be back soon and then we’ll go take Lori for a picnic,” Kara said sweetly and gave her one more kiss before nodding toward J’onn. The two of the most powerful people on the planet took to the skies.

With Kara gone, Lena felt a bit useless, so she started pacing around the Tower while the blonde hero flew into orbit to deal with the falling space station. But as Alex had reasoned if anyone were to take advantage of Supergirl being busy in space or if this was indeed a distraction then she and Nia were the City’s best bet for protection. 

“She’ll be fine,” Nia assured her with a smile, and she nodded at the young hero before adjusting her purple mask for the fifth time. How did these heroes not get itchy from these things?

“I know, but I hate not being out there with her,” she whispered and glanced over at Alex monitoring the situation with J’onn hovering over the city in low orbit as a back-up in case Kara failed. All according to the Danvers’ plan. 

“You two have come a long way you know,” her young friend said, and she couldn’t agree more.

“I know, thank you again for helping with that. How are things with Dox?” she asked making small talk to keep herself distracted from thoughts about Kara out there in space.

“A bit rough, he’s been distant since he took over Alex’s job,” the young hero said sadly, and she did something she rarely did. She put her arm around the young woman’s shoulder.

“He’ll come around. he’d been an idiot not too and you let me know if I need to talk some sense into him,” she assured the younger woman and tried to give her best reassuring smile to her young friend.

“Thank you and I guess you’re the expert on being an idiot in love, right?” Nia teased her and she could only laugh at that.

“I’ve got a lifetime membership to the idiots in love club,” she declared when an alert popped up through her augmented reality contact lenses.

“What is it?” Nia asked when she saw her eyes light up green behind the mask and for a moment she didn’t answer because this was bad.

“Lori,” she managed to answer and the Hope A.I. brought up the schematics of the orphanage without her asking.

“What?” Nia shouted with her fists lighting up with blue energy and that got Alex’s attention.

“I’ve got to go,” she started running up the stairs for the window they used to fly in and out of the Tower with the jets on her suit already firing.

“Lena, what is it?” Alex worriedly called after her as the helmet materialized over her head. 

“It’s Lori, someone is coming for Lori! Nia, get to the orphanage! Alex, you stay here and try to reach Kara!” she cried out and blasted toward the sky without a second thought this time sending J’onn’s papers flying everywhere.

Jetting through the skies above National City she set course for the orphanage. After she’d looked up the information on Lori the other day, she’d set up a few security measures. The little blonde alien whom she’d started caring for a lot was a special child with limitless potential and she took care of the people she loved.

On the head-up display in front of her eyes, she could see the group approaching the orphanage represented as dots on a green map and they were heading straight for Lori’s room. So, she pushed herself faster causing the overheating alarm for the suit’s jets to blare.

“Hope, try to reach Kara and shut that alarm off!” she shouted at the A.I. inside her head and helmet and pulled a tight turn around a building.

“I am unable to reach Mistress Zor-El at this time because there is too much interference from the heat of reentry and the stations decaying nuclear reactors,” the A.I. responded bringing up a satellite image of Kara engulfed in flames as the blonde hero tried to steer the space station’s reentry away from the city.

“Keep trying and give me more speed!” she shouted and saw the orphanage coming into view straight ahead.

On her head-up display, she could see that they were almost in Lori’s room now. She had to go faster. She had to go faster and with one last burst of speed, she crashed through the window of Lori’s room in the nick of time. Grabbing the girl up from the floor where she was playing with her Legos, she managed to turn around to shield the child from what came next.

The door burst up and a hail of crackling blue taser rounds hit her in the back. The current jolted through both her suit, sizzled across its surface and her body as she held Lori’s head against her chest with the little girl crying out for help.

“Suit’s power at ninety percent. Systems are being compromised by an unknown source,” the A.I. informed her and she gritted her teeth as another burst of crackling blue taser rounds hit the back of her suit. 

“Lena!” the child cried out and it made her blood boil. Who would dare come for someone that was hers to protect and keep safe?

“It’s alright darling, I’m here. I need you to close your eyes okay,” she whispered and listened for the men surrounding them with weapons pointed at them.

Lori nodded and sniffled as she sent a silent command to the Hope A.I. through their neural interface. Seeing the heavy boots of the para-military squad that surrounded them out of the corner of her eye she hoped that she could buy Kara enough time to get here. Because she was about to do something stupid.

“Defense sequence activated,” the A.I. announced and she slowly started pulling the sword out of the sheath on her back to the sound of clicking guns.

Pulling a small device from her belt she placed it on Lori’s chest and then in a flash the child was covered in a purple glowing forcefield and she jumped to her feet with a roar of pure anger. The augmented reality contacts in her eyes gave her projections for ballistic arcs and marked each of the dozen heavily armored men.

Swinging her sword in a wide arch she sliced two of the rifles in half and then rolled out of the way drawing their fire away from the forcefield bubble that protected Lori. Another round of taser rounds crackled against her suit and Rao, they actually hurt! Smelling burnt metal and plastic she ignored the pain.

“Get her!” one of her helmeted assailants shouted and she had to get them out of the orphanage. The third round of taser rounds either missed or grazed her and the suit's electronics started glitching out.

“Suit’s power at eighty percent... seventy-five percent and dropping,” the A.I. informed her and she knew she couldn’t take any more hits like that.

“Who are you?” she demanded in rage but got no reply and tried to draw the fire away from Lori who was curled up in a ball by her bed. The shield she’d placed on the girl only had a limited charge and she wasn’t taking these guys out fast enough. 

Her answer, however, was another round of crackling blue taser rounds but tapping into the speed granted by the nanites in her blood she managed to dodge most of them. This was too dangerous, she had to get Lori out of her and to safety, which was all that mattered.

Holding her sword out front of her in her right hand and pointing the beam emitter on her left hand at the men that circled them. She blasted two of them backward with purple concussive blasts but then the emitter died. This wasn’t good. This was very bad, but she had to fight. Fight for Lori.

“Hope what’s going on?” she demanded and gripped the sword’s hilt with both hands as she warded her attackers off. Placing herself between them and Lori. They seemed to be scared enough of her not to engage her in hand to hand combat at least.

“Power levels are dropping. source of disruption signal unknown… my algorithms are being… are being…” the A.I. informed her before going silent and then they rushed her.

Only one thought came to her mind. Keep them away from Lori and she fought with all her anger and all her love for that little girl. But with the motors in her suit dying one by one moving became harder and harder with each hit she took. Surrounded and collapsing down to one knee she gave a grunt as she stabbed one of them through the arm to buy herself a second. Then she heard Lori crying when the forcefield gave out and she knew what she had to do. 

“Hope! If you can hear me, all remaining power to the afterburners!” she shouted and somehow the A.I. responded to her request. 

The jets on her back roared to life with red fire and she hoped she could be fast enough. Blasting through the throng of people surrounding her she scooped up Lori and crashed through the window. Then the jets misfired, sputtered and finally, they gave out entirely. She was falling to the ground below. Clutching Lori to her chest she aimed for a soft landing spot. Crashing back first into a dumpster she felt the air being forced from her lungs but her first instinct was to check on the child.

“Lori… darling are you okay?” she asked trying to hide her pain and looked at the shivering little girl in her arms. 

“I’m okay,” the child whispered, and she hauled them both out of the dumpster she’d managed to crash land in.

“Hope… Hope, are you there?” she asked but got no reply and then one by one the data feeds in front of her eyes glitched out and vanished. 

“Damn it!” she cursed and heard the steel-toed boots of their pursuers approaching, they’d not gone far, and she was wearing a glitchy suit without Hope to back her up. 

“Lori, I need you to hide here alright darling,” she whispered to the girl who nodded her head and curled up behind the dumpster that had broken their fall.

The suit’s motors were barely functional, and she felt weaker as no doubt the nanites in her blood were being disrupted as well. Activating her back-up communications system, she tried to reach anybody through the cell phone signals. They wouldn’t take Lori, she wouldn’t allow it, not even over her dead body.

“Kara! J’onn! Alex! Nia!” she called out but got only static in her ears in return. Sighing she readied her sword and hoped that they would come for her first and ignore Lori. Then their assailants from the orphanage caught up with them. 

“Give us the child,” the leader ordered her and for the first time she got a good look at them. They were wearing black and grey tactical gear, helmets and full-face masks and were clearly highly trained.

“Not a chance in hell,” she growled and even as the last data feed died, she rushed them.

At first, she thought she might win, but without the Hope, A.I. guiding her and the suit on the fritz she only had her own strength, with some help from the fading nanites in her blood and her own senses.

Managing to wound two of them she took a crackling blue taser round to the shoulder that knocked the wind out of her, but she pushed past it. Lunging for the one that had shot her, she drove the sword through the rifle and the soldier’s arm but got bashed on the back of the head by the butt of a rifle. Hearing the helmet cracking under the blow she grunted. 

“You can’t have her!” she shouted in defiance and spun around, swinging her sword wildly and stumbling to her feet as she took another round to the thigh. Collapsing down to one knee again and struggling to breathe she dug down deep finding that anger again that Kelly had taught her to recognize.

“You… won’t… take her!” she gasped and spat blood into her helmet as she thought of Kara and Lori and that gave her the strength to rise to her feet once again.

“She’s not going down!” one of her attackers shouted and fired a crackling blue round at her and somehow, she deflected it with her sword out of pure spite.

That was her last bit of good luck and one of the last things she remembered before rushing them one last time. She got one more of them down by slicing his left hamstring and then another by going for the neck but then a hail of crackling blue taser rounds fire knocked her to the ground. The sword was kicked out of her hand and she felt a follow-up kick to her stomach as she watched Lori being dragged away. Holding out her hand as she tried to crawl but a sharp kick to her side ended that.

“Shall we terminate the hero ma'am?” one of the attackers asked and she tried to drag herself to her feet one last time. 

Fighting to stay alert. The edges of her vision began to blur, and she heard high heels on the concrete approaching her. Trying to raise her head was futile and she heard a harsh woman's voice speaking full of disdain. 

“No, our orders are she has to see what comes next,” the shadowy figure said and the last thing she remembered before the world went black was Lori reaching out for her and shouting; “Mommy!” 

In the sky, a blazing red trail marked Kara’s re-entry into the atmosphere and one final blow to the head sent her spiraling into darkness. Her final thought before losing consciousness completely was that mommy is coming to save you Lori!

* * *

Rising out of the Pacific Ocean Kara smiled at a job well done. The empty StarLabs space station had been diverted away from National City into the sea and the day had been saved. Hovering in above the waves with droplets of seawater running down her armor she took a deep breath and then set course for home. For home and for Lena and Lori.

With her ears ringing like a bell from the noise of re-entry she approached National City and she saw that rain clouds were gathering above the skyline. With a smile she guessed the planned picnic with her two favorite girls would have to be moved inside for today. But when she landed inside the Tower with her ears ringing a bit less only Alex was there and looking worried as hell. There was no sign of J’onn, no sign of Nia and no Lena.

“Alex… what’s wrong? Where are J’onn and Nia? Where is Lena?” she asked and got a sinking feeling in her stomach from the look of worry Alex was giving her as her hearing slowly returned.

“Lena, she took off shouting something about Lori,” Alex answered with her voice low and the world seemed to slow down.

“Nia and J’onn are out looking for them and there are reports of shots being fired at the… Kara, wait!” her sister called out after her, but she was already three miles away.

With her hearing fully returned she scanned the city. No sign of Lori, but somewhere she could hear the faint beating of Lena’s strong heart. A supersonic boom followed as she blasted off in the direction of the sound with tears streaming from her eyes. Landing in an alley near the orphanage she gasped at the sight that greeted her. Lying motionless on the ground in her cracked and broken suit of armor was Lena. The green light on the chest flickering and dying. 

“Oh no, no, no, Rao not again,” she blurted out and rushed to her lover’s side. Carefully picking up the smaller woman who felt tiny right then and cradling her in her arms. 

“Come on… wake up babe, I need you to wake up,” she urgently whispered while running her hand over the cracked helmet.

Scanning Lena’s body with her eyes and senses she could see that the sleek black and purple suit was fried beyond repair and not functional. The nanites in the woman’s blood were barely moving and the faceplate of the helmet was cracked revealing a glimpse of the pale face of the woman she loved. The heartbeat slowed but Lena’s eye was twitching almost in defiance. Underpinning it all was the sickening smell of burnt metal and circuitry and blood.

“Wake up… Lena please… wake up,” she begged and seeing her green-eyed genius like this sapped the strength from her body. No response. 

“Rao binds us to those we love; He gives us strength when we have none…” she started reciting a prayer to Rao because she didn’t know what else to do.

Looking at Lena’s pale face through the crack in the helmet’s faceplate she squeezed the woman’s limp body. The weak heartbeat was still there, and Lena had to wake up. The first drops of rain started falling on them and one drop fell along with her tears onto the exposed part of Lena’s face.

“...and in the darkest places, He guides us…” Lena replied weakly while slowly opening her green eye through the crack in the faceplate of the helmet.

“Lena…” she whispered, choking up and to her surprise, the raven-haired beauty kept on reciting the prayer as she stubbornly got to her feet despite the sleek black suit not being functional. Moving the seized-up joints through pure force of will.

“For Rao sees all, feels all, his love eternal,” Lena spoke with her voice growing stronger and she didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. As if in response to Lena’s defiance the clouds above burst and the rain started falling hard on them. 

“Rao protect us so that We might protect others!” her lover stated firmly and pulled off her helmet with the rain matting down her black hair.

“And We shall rise, a Fire in His Hearth, burning and free,” they both spoke the final words of the prayer and their eyes met in the rain. Rao above and Great Krypton's Ghost she loved this woman. 

Lena looked furious with blood running down her chin from the corner of her mouth and her pale skin was almost white. Soaked by the sudden downpour the broken and burnt purple and black armor glistened but her green eyes were filled with fire and fury. Someone had taken Lori from them and the scientist looked ready to burn the city to the ground to find the child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! this chapter took ages to get right and the next few chapters will also be a bit slow to write I suspect.
> 
> Writing them being cute together and chatting is easy, writing action scenes and you know plot-stuff is hard!
> 
> I am a big fan of Kara being smart, as I see it her super speed doesn't only apply to her body but also to her mind. 
> 
> The next chapter will bring you a very angry Lena!


	11. Course Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team re-groups after Lori's abduction and Lena suit's up in a new but familiar suit to get answers.
> 
> Kara worries for her lady love and ends up asking something maybe a bit too early.

Kara worriedly watched Lena stalk around the Tower and noticed that Alex also watched the raven-haired and furious woman with a wary eye. The green-eyed genius was beyond angry and ripping the burnt and broken suit from her body one piece at a time. The cracked helmet rested on a nearby table with a still bloodstained sword next to it. Pieces of armor kept hitting the floor with loud thuds. She’d flown them back here from the alley she’d found Lena in, but once they’d landed her girlfriend had demanded to be put down and ignored Alex pleading with her to allow her to do a medical check-up.

“This is it… I’m going to kill him! I’m going to find him and kill him!” Lena was muttering under her breath as she picked up her sword and slashed it through the air a few times. 

“Lena, babe please calm down, kill who?” she asked now genuinely worried and tried to keep her voice calm. Even though she was angry too. In fact, she wanted to tear this city apart brick by brick, but she’d learned her lesson about unleashing her power without focus. 

“Lex, this has to be his doing! Who else would do something like this!” the green-eyed genius roared and drove the sword almost clean through the table it had been resting on. The only reason it didn’t go clean through was perhaps due to Lena’s weakened state.

“Hey, we all hate Lex here but there is no proof that…” Alex said, trying to be the voice of reason as well, but Lena yanked the sword out of the table and marched right up to her sister. Getting in her face with her nostrils flaring in anger.

Watching Lena wearing bits and pieces of her ruined armor standing toe to toe with Alex and staring up at her sister in defiant fury while clutching her sword made her take a step closer. Just in case. Alex held her ground though as the two of the most willful people she knew not to mention cared for the most in the entire world clashed in a battle of wills. But she was ready to step in if they came to blows. Then Lena seemed to crumble before their eyes and the anger faded from that porcelain pale face to be replaced with pure anguish.

“They took her Alex... they took Lori… they took… my little girl!” the green-eyed genius started saying angrily but then she could see something breaking inside her lover and that usually strong voice quivered.

Before she could rush to hug Lena and tell her it would all be alright. Alex surprised her and wrapped her arms around the petite scientist and hugged her tightly. Lena fought against the hug until her sword dropped to the floor with a loud clanging noise. Then the beaten and battered woman gave in and returned the gesture of kindness. 

Watching her sister hug her girlfriend forced her to bite into her lower lip because despite the urgency of their present situation the sight was something she’d wished to see for so long. Lena and Alex had never gotten along, both too headstrong and willful, until now.

“I know Lena, I know, and we’ll get her back,” Alex promised Lena and with a heart-wrenching sob, the pale-skinned woman hugged her sister tighter.

“She’s just a kid… a scared kid... like…” her lover and companion sobbed, and Alex rubbed her back as she floated closer to the pair.

“Like we were,” she whispered and put her hand on Lena’s shoulder. The raven-haired beauty that owned her heart looked back at her with glistening green eyes. 

“Kara… she called out to me, she called me mommy,” Lena whispered while clearly trying to regain some of her composure but failing.

That’s when her heart broke and she squeezed her hand into a fist hard enough to crush steel. Lori had called Lena mommy and that was too much. Before she could do something drastic, however, somehow her love sensed her rising anger or more likely heard the sizzle of her heat-vision flaring. 

The green-eyed genius turned away from Alex and hugged her tightly with so much desperation and love that she felt the rage inside subsisting for the time being. Still, someone had taken Lori. Hurt Lena and this could not be allowed to go unpunished.

“We’ll get her back,” Lena whispered firmly as the tables were turned and now the raven-haired woman was being strong for her sake.

“How? I can’t hear her when I listen out for her heartbeat and babe you took a beating against what were probably just footsoldiers,” she said, straining her senses to try to hear the little girl’s heartbeat.

“We’ll find some way… that’s what we do right?” the green-eyed genius asked with her husky voice gaining some of its strength and she could only give a nod while looking down at this amazing woman. 

“Lena, thank goodness you’re okay!” Nia called out as the younger hero burst into the Tower with J’onn hot on her heels. 

“I’m fine, but they took her, Nia they took Lori,” Lena explained to the younger hero with her voice slightly trembling. Then her girlfriend held out her hand half-covered in a burnt glove and Nia gave it a squeeze.

“What do you need me to do?” Nia asked right away and with renewed purpose, Lena let go of her and marched over to the bank of screens with her green eyes darting between them.

Watching Lena desperately search the screens for any sign, any tiny bit of information she noticed that J’onn was quietly talking to her girlfriend and Nia had an arm around the green-eyed genius’ shoulders. Again, it gave her a spark of hope to see her friends and family finally accept Lena, even if the circumstances were terrible. 

“Kara, she needs to be checked out by a doctor and you can’t go flying off the handle either,” Alex said quietly and knowing her the best out of anyone her sister could sense her moods shifting.

“I know, but Alex, look at her! What would you do if that was Kelly?” she asked, and Lena sniffled before taking a few shuddering breaths to calm herself down with J’onn and Nia staying by the woman’s side.

“Tell us what you need Lena,” she overheard J’onn saying in that deep calming voice of his as the Martian put his hand on the scientist’s shoulder in a gesture of support and friendship.

“Low blow Kara, low blow. Kelly doesn’t have a power-suit or metabolism-enhancing nanites in her blood...” her sister countered.

“...or an unresponsive A.I. in her head,” Lena spoke out indicating that she could hear them from across the room. Barely had those words left Lena’s lips when every piece of electronics in the Tower turned on a hiss of static and sparks.

“REBOOTING!” the Hope A.I’s voice blasted through every speaker in the Tower. Followed by Lena giving a blood-curdling scream before grabbing her head and falling to her knees. 

With her and Alex rushing to Lena’s side as she ran through the entire visible spectrum to make sure that Lena was alright. With both of them offering their hand the deathly pale woman waved them all away as she shivered and shook violently. Green veins appeared underneath her pale skin but then faded as the nanites rushed through her blood again. After what felt like an eternity, Lena rose to her feet with her eyes glowing a frightful green color.

“Lena? You okay babe?” she asked and for a moment her lover stared at her blank-faced with a thousand-mile stare in her eyes.

“Kara… hate to say it but your girlfriend has gone a bit children of the corn on us…” Alex whispered out of the corner of her mouth while going for her side-arm but both Nia and J’onn both stopped her sister.

“No! I’ve seen this before… she’s searching using that thing in her head. Alex, she's not a threat,” the young hero explained and gave Alex a pleading look.

“I agree there is no hostile intent coming from her, only sadness,” J’onn pitched in and Alex calmed down a little bit. Then Lena spoke without any trace of the grief and anger she’d shown before and instead, the former CEO was all business.

“No sign of her in National City and Lex probably didn’t take her but he’s still our best bet for help,” Lena answered after a pregnant pause.

“Babe?” she asked since she was still filled with worry and stepped closer to her lover but Lena responded by putting a hand on her arm and flashing her a quick smile.

“I’m okay but be warned I’ll cry more later but me crying now doesn’t get us closer to finding Lori,” the green-eyed genius explained. 

"Are you sure you're alright?" she asked needing to be sure, not wanting Lena to push herself too hard.

"I'll be fine, Hope is back online and the nanites are repairing the damage, but the more we talk the more time we waste," Lena said and gave her a brief but pleading look. 

“What’s the plan? Alex asked while seemingly relaxing and removing her hand from her sidearm but still on high alert and Lena sprang into action. 

“Nia, can you hit up any contacts you might have in the alien community? Ask them if anyone has seen or heard anything?” Lena asked the younger hero. Now taking full charge of things while removing off the rest of the burnt armor.

“On it!” Nia announced and had her phone out before the words even left her lips.

“J’onn, is it okay if I call you J'onn? can you contact and set up a meeting with that little group you and Kara belong to? See if there is anything they can do to help?” the green-eyed genius asked J'onn next and she could see those green glowing eyes displaying a hint of unsureness. 

“Of course and consider it done,” J’onn said and she gave her space-dad a curious look getting a gentle smile in return. It would seem that J'onn had accepted Lena.

“Alex, cell phone signals, radio signals, satellite feeds, weird airplanes landing or taking, old DEO contacts, anything you can do to help? And call up Kelly to see if she can help too?” Lena asked her sister while counting off on her fingers what was needed, and she felt so proud when her sister only nodded her agreement at the scientist.

“Kara… I need a new suit and a ride,” the raven-haired beauty then said. Turning her attention to her as she removed the last few pieces of armor leaving her in only torn black leggings and a mostly ruined sports-bra making everyone turn away at the sight of so much exposed pale skin.

“Of course, umm here,” she said and took off her cape and wrapped it around Lena’s body. 

“Thank you, darling, I’ve got a back-up of sorts at home… so first stop there,” Lena explained, and she nodded rising up from the ground holding her girl wrapped up in the red cape. 

“Contact me if you find anything guys,” she said, and their friends and family nodded at them. Then Lena did one of those things that surprised her but in a good way.

“I… thank you, all of you! Meet you back here in an hour,” Lena spoke softly and to save her girlfriend from crying again she flew them out the ceiling entrance towards their apartment.

Rising into the sky she did one last sweep of the city with her super-hearing and telescopic vision but came up empty again. That old Kryptonian rage flared up inside of her again but she willfully pushed it down. A rampage wouldn’t help them find who took Lori and Lena reassuringly squeezing her arms around her neck also helped.

* * *

Once they got back home to their now shared apartment Lena was feeling angry again. Despite regaining some of her calm and composure at the Tower she was now seething under the surface of her calm facade and she knew Kara could tell as she pulled clothes out of one of her closets. Throwing each article of clothing on the bed or the floor until she found what she needed. It was a black DEO uniform much like the one Alex had worn right up until she resigned. She’d borrowed it a while back to see if she could improve the design but never got around to it. Right now, however, it was just what she needed and then her eyes met Kara’s worried blue eyes.

“Stop looking at me like that please, I’m not going to shoot him, only scare him,” she tried to ease the fears of her blonde girlfriend as she pulled the form-fitting black suit on. At any other time, she would tease Kara about staring too hard but today was not a day for teasing. 

“I’m worried about you that’s all,” Kara said from where the blonde sat on the bed with legs crossed and her red cape splayed out behind her while playing around with the purple mask she’d ripped off her face and thrown on the floor.

“You know me, can’t keep a good Luthor down,” she tried to act cocky, but her ribs still hurt like hell and the nanites were working overtime to repair the damage. Adjusting the raised and padded shoulders of the suit she pulled on the heavy boots that went with it. 

“I do know you, Lena… Lori calling you mommy, that couldn’t have been easy to hear,” the blonde hero said softly rising from the bed. 

“We’ll get her back,” she declared like she had back at the Tower and pulled two alien pistols from a hidden compartment in her sock drawer. A girl could never be too careful after all. Then she pulled out an old shield generator and strapped it to her forearm. Again, a girl could never have too many toys. 

“Okay, you’re freaking me out a little bit Lena. Both with all this alien weaponry you’re pulling out of our closets and this ice-queen act. It’s okay to be scared,” Kara challenged her and for the first time in a long time, she found herself staring down the blue-eyed Kryptonian in open conflict. Even under her glare, her Kryptonian didn’t bend nor did she flinch but instead Kara Zor-El decided to be sweet and caring. Her one weakness. 

“Babe, this is me, your Kara… talk to me,” the blonde hero pleaded with her softly and floated closer to her with a sad smile on her face.

“I…” she stammered while trying to be strong and keep that righteous Luthor anger going but Kara only smiled at her and helped zip up the black uniform.

“It’s okay, get it all out, then we’ll go and dangle Lex off a building,” her Kryptonian girlfriend joked to which she gave a sobbing laugh.

“She called me mommy,” she whispered, and Kara cupped her cheek gently. This all felt like she was repeating herself but somehow it also didn’t feel real yet what had happened.

“We will find her, Alex and Kelly, Nia and Dox, J’onn, Kate, Barry, and Sara, they’ll all help. You’ll see,” Kara assured her again and she felt a tear escaping down her cheek despite her best efforts. Some of those names she didn’t recognize but she could guess who they were. 

“I want to be her mommy, Kara. I didn’t know I wanted it this bad and now she’s been taken from me… from us,” she said, trying yet again to stay strong and trying not to cry. Luthors don’t cry.

“You will be her mommy, Lena and I will move Heaven and Earth to make that happen,” the blonde Kryptonian promised her with a resolute tone to her voice.

“You’ll be her mom too you know,” she said softly hoping she wasn’t pushing things and that made Kara smile despite her serious demeanor. Then the blonde Kryptonian dropped a bombshell on their life. 

“Marry me?” Kara blurted out and they both froze with their eyes going wide as saucers. Looking up at the tall blonde woman that she was more in love with than she’d thought possible she wanted to speak but the words wouldn’t come out. That sent Kara into a minor, potentially huge, state of panic.

“Rao! I didn’t mean to say that, but I did but this is totally the wrong time and…” the blonde started back-peddling but that she wouldn’t allow it. Yet, her mouth wouldn’t respond. 

“I mean I love you and I would love a big house, a white picket fence, and a minivan with you, Rao I’d love it so much but just forget I said anything and…” the blonde Kryptonian kept babbling and she knew that this was her girlfriend’s coping mechanism in a sense.

Getting up on her toes, like she always had to do with her tall and strong girlfriend, she kissed Kara on the lips gently while grabbing both her hands and giving them a squeeze. The blonde’s strong fingers intertwined with hers and she lowered herself back down to the floor.

“Yes, once we get Lori back, I will marry you and we’ll be a family,” she replied and even though this was the saddest day of her life that promise gave her hope. Again, they were rushing things and she knew it, but life was precious and moved fast when you were a superhero, she was finding out the hard way.

“Really? I mean good, that’s good... how about we go dangle your brother off a high building then, uh?” Kara asked while looking genuinely stunned at her response. 

“Sounds good to me, let me just get my sword,” she said with a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips and like at the Tower she adjusted her hero’s flowing red cape affectionately. And like that, they were engaged.

Picking up the sword which she’d left casually on their nightstand she fastened it to her back and Kara handed her the purple mask with a questioning look. The same mask she’d thrown on the floor in anger earlier but with a smile, she shook her head.

“No, not for this. I need to do this as Lena,” she explained and silently Kara folded the mask before putting away in a compartment on her suit’s belt. 

“What’s the plan boss?” Kara asked while giving her a small salute and she gave her girlfriend her best Luthor grin. 

Pulling her hair into a tight ponytail she added one final touch to her black suit, a blue armband that made Kara grin like an idiot. Lex would be in for a rude shock. It was time to redefine their relationship with Lex and her brother would help her find Lori. If he knew what was good for him.

* * *

At the LexCorp Building, Rao how she hated that name, office workers ducked for cover when she strode through the corridors and made a beeline for Lex’s office. It wasn’t every day that one of the owners showed up in black combat gear with a sword on her back and alien weapons at her hips. Kara had dropped her off outside and would be waiting for her signal to make her presence known. Blowing past Lex’s secretary, she swung the doors to his office open and entered with purpose in her step.

“Lena good to see that you’re alright I heard about your encounter… and what are you wearing?” her brother started one of his usual spiels, but she drew one of her weapons and aimed it right at his bald head. 

His eyes were wide and flew between the charged and humming weapon and the blue armband on her right arm sporting the red and yellow House of El crest. She was showing her allegiance in a very visible way, but she wasn’t sure which sight shocked him the most. The gun or the armband.

“You sit. I talk,” she ordered her brother as the secretary’s scream at the sight of her weapon sent the rest of the staff scurrying.

“Alright… alright…” Lex consented while holding up his hands, but she didn’t holster her weapon. She didn’t trust Lex further than she could throw him and in her current state that would be about six feet. 

“Earlier today I someone I care about very much was abducted. Now you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?” she asked and her voice was dripping with icy venom.

“No, of course not! I got a report that you were attacked through the DEO but I assumed you and your pet Kryptonian would....” he started both sounding like he was offended and the suggestion that he’d hurt a child but throwing in contemptuous that pet Kryptonian comment. Well, that was his second mistake.

“Hope can you hack his systems to make sure he’s not being a lying snake and open the windows for me please,” she coolly instructed the A.I. in her head. Until now she'd loath to use it after the traumatic reboot earlier.

“Yes Miss Luthor, hacking your brother’s systems now,” the Hope A.I. responded through the speakers on Lex’s laptop. 

“Lena, what the hell!” he protested, and she simply kept him at gunpoint with her finger lightly pressing on the trigger.

“They took Lori and that Kryptonian is…” she started correcting him but didn’t finish because then showing impeccable timing having most likely been eavesdropping nearby. Kara entered through the now open windows. 

The sunlight caught on the gold in-laid Kryptonian writing on the suit’s shoulders, arms and legs as the crest of the House of El glowed proudly on Kara’s chest. The blonde Kryptonian stood tall and proud with an imperious look on her beautiful face and the circlet around her head really did make her look like a queen. 

“...her fiancée, now you are going to help us find Lori,” Kara declared frostily with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Or what?” Lex spat back showing that he wasn’t cowed and before she could answer Kara shocked both her and her brother.

“Or I’ll lobotomize you,” Kara stated in a very matter of fact tone of voice and with her eyes blazing with heat vision.

“What?” they both asked. Lex because he probably never believed a Super would do that and her because that hadn’t been the plan. 

“All I have to do is use a nanoscopic beam of heat-vision focused through one of your pupil’s and I can just… slice away whatever I don’t like in that ugly monkey brain of yours,” Kara explained and lowered her arms. The blonde’s hands were balled into fists and her blue eyes were still crackling with barely contained heat-vision.

“You wouldn’t? You’re a Super!” Lex protested. In response, Kara laughed and it was a laugh that scared the hell out of her while she hoped to Rao and Tesla himself that her blonde hero was putting on an act. 

“Lex, Lex, Lex,” Kara chuckled and floated right up to Lex’s desk with a disapproving shake of her head.

“You’re forgetting one tiny detail… I’m not Kal… I’m Kara Zor-El!” the blonde hero didn’t shout nor did she growl but simply stated the fact with frosty confidence. 

Then Lex did something stupid. Lunging for a drawer in his desk no doubt containing either a weapon or Kryptonite but in response and before she could fire at his hand, Kara dismissively blasted whatever was in the drawer through the desk with a burst of a heat-vision. Then the blonde Kryptonian gave a tired sounding sigh and shook her head. Almost as if she was tired of the folly of humans.

“I can move faster than you can think Lex. Please don’t be stupid again,” Kara chastised her brother and she took that as her cue to step in. Holstering her weapon because with Kara around acting terrifying it felt unnecessary. 

“You heard her Lex, now are you going to help or not?” she asked her brother with both her and Kara towering over him.

“You’re not giving me much of a choice, are you?” Lex asked with some of his cockiness returning to his pale face and voice.

“Nope!” Kara said again with her arms again crossed over her chest and looking like she had no patience for this today.

“Hope did you find anything?” she asked the A.I. who was rooting around in Lex’s systems in case he was lying.

“Negative Miss Luthor, but perhaps your brother can use his more unsavory contacts to help us locate Miss Lori,” the A.I. spoke through the laptop on the desk.

“You heard the A.I. and my fiancée, work fast and send me whatever you find,” she ordered her brother before walking over to the open window with Kara following her after glaring a hole through Lex’s bald head. The frown on his face made the dropping of the fiancée title worth it.

“Oh, and one more thing... Lex,” she said sweetly and the change in her tone made Lex sit upright in his chair.

“I quit,” she declared, pulled out her weapon and shot at the LexCorp logo on the wall behind his desk. Watching with considerable glee as it exploded into tiny fragments.

Wrapping her arms around Kara’s neck she kissed the blonde in full view of her brother and nodded for the blonde hero to take them away from here. Floating away from the LexCorp Building she felt a certain sense of closure. That part of her life was over now. Now they had to find Lori and move toward the future.

Landing back in the Tower, Kara gently put her down and then turned a bit green around the gills before rushing to a nearby trashcan and throwing up. In a flash, Alex was by her sister’s side rubbing the blonde’s back.

“What happened?” Alex demanded her voice almost shrill as she tried to comfort her retching sister.

“I… had to do something evil to make sure Lex would help us,” Kara explained before she could answer while wiping the spit from her mouth.

Pushing past Alex, she gave Kara a hug, this seemed to be the day for hugs and she fixed the blonde’s hair and circlet with a gentle touch while looking into those wonderfully blue eyes. The hug was also to make sure that Kara was still her Kara. Seeing her blonde hero unleashed like that had scared the life out of her and she didn’t want to lose the woman again not like last time. The throwing up was a good sign, however, odd as it may have sounded.

“Warn me next time before you do that alright?” she begged, and Kara gave an embarrassed little nod.

“It got us what we needed right? Lex will help us now, even if he likes it or not,” the blonde hero said with a shrug.

“Okay someone please clue me in! What did you two dorks do?” Alex asked and that made Kara even more awkward.

“I kinda did the whole glowy eyes and bow before me puny human thing to make Lex help us,” the blonde Kryptonian blurted out with a blush creeping into her pale cheeks as Alex's face fell in visible shock. 

“It was terrifying!” she had to chime in, and Kara gave them both an unapologetic look. 

“I won’t say I’m sorry,” Kara defiantly declared and before both she or Alex could argue a chime from the bank of screens in the Tower along with J’onn’s arrival interrupted them. 

“Sorry about what?” J’onn asked as the Martian stepped into the Tower’s main room from some unseen side-room with a smile on his face before he smugly turned to the bank of screens. One by one they lit up with a friendly face or at least a friendly face to Kara. 

“Is this on? Kara, are you there?” The Flash asked while grinning at the camera with a white-haired woman behind him and a goofy looking guy hovering nearby.

“Barry!” Kara laughed and darted to the screens as more and more people appeared on them.

“Hey there Sunshine, nice circlet, very regal, heard you needed help,” Batwoman popped up next and she had to fight to push down some of that lingering jealousy she had against the redhead that came bubbling to the surface of her mind. Though now she saw that she wasn’t a red-head at all, but instead a very pretty woman with a punky and short black hair. Calm yourself Luthor, you’re engaged to Kara now. 

“Kate!” Kara was laughing in shock and more and more heroes called in with their faces filling the screens.

“This is Sara on the Waverider, what do you need Kara? Oh, hey Alex long time no see,” a stunning blonde in a white catsuit greeted them next and she could have sworn Alex looked a bit uncomfortable. The former Director pulling at the neck of her tight black t-shirt and smoothing down the legs of her jeans.

“Heard they took your kid Skirt. How can we help?” a gruff looking bald man squeezed into the frame with the blonde and gave Kara a mock salute.

“Yeah, we can’t be having that can we, how are you holding up blondie?” a scruffy looking blonde man in an unironed shirt with a red tie spoke in a thick English accent. 

“Sara, Mick, Constantine!” Kara whimpered like a puppy just as the blonde Kryptonians cousin popped up along with a face she didn’t recognize on the screen next to Superman.

“Hey cousin, I can be there in five minutes with a few friends,” Superman said with Lois Lane waving in the background.

“Yeah, give the word and the girls and I will be there,” a deep-voiced black hero stated. Her A.I. marked him as Black Lightning with two teenage girls in similar suits filling up the screen on either side of him.

“Oh wow, you all... Oh, hold on guys this is umm… she’s my...” Kara blurted out but stumbled over her words again and pulled her over to the screens making her feel a bit uncomfortable facing all these friends of Kara’s all at once.

“Lena Luthor, woman, scientist, boss, fiancée, hero. In that order,” she filled in for her blonde hero which made the virtually gathered heroes gasp. 

“Fiancée? Good work Sunshine!” Batwoman, or more correctly Kate, praised Kara who gave a dazzling and happy smile.

“And I thought I moved fast,” The Flash, no correction Barry, joked and before this meeting would descent into congratulations, she took charge.

“Yes, I’m quite the catch...” she joked then paused and took a deep breath. “...but we could really use your help, all of your help. I know this isn’t like when I fought the Anti-Monitor with some of you as Hope, but Lori… she means the world to me,” she pleaded. Hoping that revealing her identity to all these heroes in the hope it would urge them to help.

“Listen Boss-lady, of course, we’ll help find your kid,” the scarred and bald man gruffly answered before being pushed to one side by the blonde in white.

“What Mick said. What’s the status? J’onn told us about the kid like Mick so tactfully pointed out,” Sara asked and zipped up the front of her suit which again made Alex gulp.

“We have no leads, whoever took her is masking her life-signs from us and we're coming up empty with our inquiries,” she explained as the Hope A.I. fed her information on all these new people and again she struggled to stay strong.

“It’s alright, babe you don’t have to sell them on this, they’ll help because it’s what friends do right?” Kara assured her and put a strong arm around her shoulders as the various heroes nodded on the screens.

“Right… I’m sending you all the data we have,” she explained with Kara holding her hand as her eyes glowed green.

Uploading photos of Lori playing, photos of Lori and Kara hugging, recordings Hope had made of them during their visits and picnics. Breakdowns of Lori’s vitals and biometrics. It surprised her how many pictures she had of the girl already. 

“Got it guys?” Kara asked her friends and like one they sprang into action. 

“On it!” Barry and Sara and Kate all said at once the data was uploaded with Kara smiling at her virtually gathered friends.

“We’ll go shake down a few people, not as good with computers as the others. Girls let’s go,” Black Lighting gruffly stated as his two daughters, she guessed, waved at them. 

“Thank you, I’ll come and visit soon,” Kara called out before that screen went blank. 

“Lois and I will hit up our Daily Planet contacts and by the way nice armband Lena, it suits you,” Superman said and winked at her knowingly as she adjusted the blue armband. If she didn’t know herself better, she could have sworn she was nervous. But Kal-El also represented another long-overdue talk she would need to have.

“Perfect, call us as soon as you have something, no matter how late or how small it is,” she said and ended the meeting so that everyone could get work done. There would be time for congratulations later. When they had Lori back. 

“Fiancée?” Alex asked them with a raised eyebrow once the screens went dark again and Kara visibly squirmed.

“Yes, when did this happen young lady?” J’onn asked Kara gravely, crossing his arms over his chest using what she could best describe as a dad-voice.

“I may… have asked…” the blonde was stammering and looking like she was about to pass out.

“Kara asked. I said yes. You are all invited,” she rattled off and really wanted to get back to the task of finding Lori.

“Alright, but bear with me for my second question. Are you wearing one of my old DEO suits? Alex asked her and she let out a groan. 

“Yes, call me Agent Luthor if it makes you feel better. Do we have any new leads?” she asked and looked at everyone gathered. Her eyes going from Alex to Nia then to J’onn and finally to Kara. Everyone shook their heads

“Alright, let’s go over it again,” she sighed and took over the bank of screens in the Tower. Using her neural interface to throw up on the screens all the data she had on those who had attacked her and taken Lori. Along with information on the space station that had been the distraction to get Kara out of the way.

Hours later when it had turned dark she was pulling a blanket over Nia, as the young hero had fallen asleep by one of the desks. J’onn was out again hunting for clues they might have missed, and Kara was hovering in front of the screens without her cape on praying for a call from any of the Superfriends. Alex was out on a food run and then she felt Kelly’s hand on her shoulder.

“How you holding up?” the psychologist asked her with a friendly smile, and she shrugged. 

“Well I came out to a bunch of people as both queer and a superhero, that’s something right?” she asked rather obviously trying to deflect the question out of habit.

“I’m not asking as your psychologist, I’m asking as your friend,” Kelly said with that same gentle smile.

“I’m… I got called mommy. Got my ass handed to me. I’ve debated hacking into every single government agencies’ systems at least twice. I shot at my brother today and it felt good and oh Kara asked me to marry her. Oh, and I quit the family business, all in all, a weird day,” she answered at first intent on saying that she was fine but then it all came tumbling out. 

“I’m almost sorry I asked, want to talk about... well any of that?” the psychologist asked. No correction, she reminded herself this was her friend asking. 

“Thanks, Kelly, but I what I could really use right now is a distraction,” she replied and then the universe supplied one.

Alarms blared and Kara had her cape on in a blink of an eye followed by a gust of wind as Nia was jolted awake and fell out of her chair. The unsavory elements in National City had noticed their absence and had decided tonight would be a good time to engage in some old-fashioned larceny. Wordlessly Kara handed her the purple mask.

* * *

Lori was in a scary place but she knew she shouldn't be scared. Mommy and Kara wouldn't be scared if they were here and so she wasn't going to be scared at all! Even if the mean lady said nasty things about her mommy. She knew Lena would be her mommy one day because she'd seen in one time when she closed her eyes really hard. Putting her head down on the bed in the room they'd put her in she tried to go sleep and maybe dream about Mommy and Kara and her having a picnic together. Mommy would come and get her soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter in the bag! Doing these 'a lot of people talking' chapters is always a challenge but I hope this one turned out good for you guys!
> 
> What do you think about Kara blurting out that Marry Me? I went through three drafts of this chapter but that scene kept sticking. So, in the end, I just said to hell with it and kept it in they're engaged now.


	12. Rampage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> National City Burns!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited: Big Thanks to commentator Nin for pointing out a bit of a plothole in this chapter that's now been plugged!

This was beyond the pale! Lena thought as she ducked behind a counter in an upscale jewelry store located in downtown National City and returned fire even as glass rained down all around her. Not only was National City’s criminal element out in force, but someone had armed them to teeth with high tech weapons and her ever-suspicious mind refused to accept this as a mere coincidence. Not since this was her third robbery thwarting in six hours and she really liked this jewelry store too. She'd even planned on getting Kara a ring from here once things quieted down and they'd found Lori.

Checking the status of the power-cells in her weapons, she noticed that her black DEO issue suit was scuffed and dirty and there was a small rip in the blue armband she now wore. It marked her allegiance to Kara's the House of El and had the added benefit of taunting Lex. On top of the state of her borrowed DEO suit, her muscles ached, and her ribs still hurt despite the nanites' best efforts to repair the damage from the day before.

“Kara, Alex, come in? Could use some back-up if you’re free,” she asked into her earpiece as she returned fire and waited for the A.I. to give her a better lock on her targets.

“Kinda busy!” Alex shouted through her earpiece and she could hear gunfire and laser-fire in the background over the roar of a motorbike's engine.

“Be there in a second babe, just… oh no, you did not just spit acid on me! Shisir rraop!” Kara roared in her native Kryptonian and what followed were loud crashing sounds as the blonde Kryptonian pummeled her foe.

“On second thought I’ll deal with this myself,” she conceded after hearing that the Danvers sisters were clearly busy. Fixing her purple mask because once this was over, she fully intended to have a secret identity to go back to before taking a deep steadying breath but again, her ribs hurt.

They’d all been running ragged for the past half a day. What had started as one break-in at a lab had snowballed into a city-wide outbreak of mayhem and right now, they were barely staying ahead of things. To make things even worse, a break-out at two of the DEO’s containment facilities had resulted in a flood of pissed-off villainous aliens and metahumans hitting the streets which Kara, Nia, and J'onn were still rounding up.

That left her and Alex Danvers to deal with the more pedestrian side of things when it came to street-level crime. It was for a lack of a better term, sky-rocketing thanks to the petty criminals of the city receiving upgrades from what Kara described as Evil Fairy Godmothers. So, it was all hands on deck. Meaning they had less time to hunt for Lori and each new alert from Hope made her angrier.

“Targets acquired Miss Luthor shall we kick ass?” the Hope A.I. or simply Hope now, asked her and she gave a grim nod.

Activating her personal shield generator, a purple-blue nimbus encased her, and she drew the sword from her back. She missed her aptly nicknamed Hope-suit already because this would be so much easier if she had it on right now.

“Here is my offer! Give up and you can all walk out of here under your own power!” she called out and as always the answer was a hail of laser-fire and curses.

“Suit yourselves then,” she grunted and activating the nanites in her blood before she launched herself into action faster than could technically be considered humanly possible.

But her foes weren’t too bad in the aiming department either and several green laser-bolts bounced off her shield as she roared in defiance when she sliced the offending weapon that had fired at her in half. Finishing up by headbutting the petty criminal wielding it for good measure and drawing a gush of blood from his nose. With her power-suit laying in ruins back at the Tower she was forced to get creative and brutal, but she was a hero now or at least that’s what everyone was calling her. It would be what Lori would want her to be.

Striding up to her next target she could see the poor man was panicking because his precious laser-rifle had malfunctioned. Twirling her sword playfully she grinned at him and he tried to fire but she already knew that nothing would happen since he had overheated the weapon's magnetic coils earlier.

“You seem to have forgotten the first law of engineering,” she teased him before she launched herself into action again.

“Always…” she shouted as she kicked the rifle out of his hands and then sliced it half in mid-air with her sword.

“... read the…” she went on and drove the elbow of her sword-arm into his chest which forced the air from his lungs.

“...manual,” she then finished and delivered a left hook to his face with enough force to knock him out but Rao it hurt to punch people without her suit on.

Before she could gloat her forcefield ran out of power and it was only a flashing warning from Hope in the corner of her eye gave her enough notice to allow her to duck a hail of green laser-fire. Spinning around and drawing her side-arm she dropped two more heavily armed robbers with well-placed shots of purple bolts of plasma thanks in no small amount to Hope’s targeting assistance.

"Offer is still valid, you can all still walk... well some of you can still walk out of here!" she called out but corrected herself when one of them groaned on the ground as she scanned the store before being forced to duck for cover again.

“They never learn, do they?” Hope asked in her ear sounding a bit put off as it kept tracking her foes.

“No, no they don’t. Offer still stands and I can see you two hiding behind that counter you know,” she teased the two remaining thugs covered behind a counter but she could see their heat-signatures on the displays provided by her augmented reality contact lenses.

There was no reply, not even curses, and it was a tense few seconds before she saw them make their move. Taking another deep breath, she sheathed her sword and drew both her weapons from her hips before she jumped to her feet. Hoping to get the drop on them before they could get a shot off. But instead, they both crumbled to the ground as J’onn J'onzz appeared as if out of thin air from behind them. Having phased his hands in and out of their chests to knock them out.

“J’onn, you scared me for a second there, but Rao, am I glad to see you,” she said but kept her weapons at the ready. Oh, how she wished that she had her beam emitters but right now she did not have the time to rebuild them.

“I heard you needed back up,” he stated simply and looked around at her handiwork, three groaning would-be jewelry thieves and one with a broken nose. All unconscious.

“Well you saved me the plasma,” she shrugged and twirled her guns before holstering them again.

“Got any news for me?” she asked hopefully and adjusted the blue armband on her right bicep before fixing her purple mask. How did these hero types keep these things straight?

“Nothing new, Kate said she’s following up on a lead and Black Lighting is beating up people up and down the coast, but so far nothing,” the Martian answered, and she felt her spirits flagging.

“We will find her, Lena,” he said while putting a warm and comforting hand on her shoulder and she found herself somewhat confused by this strange and alien man.

“Why are you being nice to me?” she asked and looked up at him. Maybe this was a good time for that talk she’d been meaning to have with Kara’s father figure.

“What do you mean?” he replied with a question of his own as they walked out of the store with police rushing in around them to round up their defeated foes.

“Yesterday at the Tower, you stood up for me, why?” she asked while giving him a curious look.

“Is me standing up for you so strange? You’re a good person, and I saw what you did for Kara when she went off the deep end. Few people would have had the guts to stand up to Supergirl as you did,” he explained and she couldn’t quite believe him, which he, of course, sensed.

“Is it that so hard to believe? You fought for Kara’s soul in Kaznia and before that, you were always by her side. You rushed from your hospital bed to fight the Anti-Monitor with us and you took that little girl into your heart. Lena Luthor, you are a good person,” he went on and she wanted to believe him.

“And you’re not mad that I’m going to marry her?” she asked, and she full of questions today it would seem, but the Martian chuckled.

“If anything, you’ll keep her out of trouble! And didn’t she ask you?” he laughed, and she found herself liking this man.

“She might have asked, but I plan on making sure that she will never want for anything for as long as she lives,” she promised him and that earned her a grateful smile.

“That’s all I need to hear,” he said with his deep voice rumbling and she looked around quickly to check if they were alone before giving him a quick hug. Once again having to get up on her toes made her wonder why all these new people in her life were so tall!

“What was that for?” he asked, being caught off guard by her sudden display of gratitude.

“For accepting me,” she answered quietly but before she could continue this admittedly nice bonding moment with Kara’s space-dad two more alarms went off a few blocks away in opposite directions from their location.

“Duty calls,” J’onn said with a wry smile and she nodded pulling her ponytail tighter.

He was right, it was time for her to put her hair up and square up once again. Tying her hair up she was ruefully reminded that her black hair was now streaked with purple highlights. A suggestion of Nia's and another attempt at trying to stay incognito as Hope without the helmet and the Hope-suit. Nia had even said it made her look younger when she’d used the nanites to do it. Which she wasn’t sure was a good thing, because she didn’t think of herself as old in any sense of the word.

“I’ll go uptown, and you go downtown and for the record, you would have made a hell of a DEO agent,” J’onn suggested before paying her the highest compliment he could give she was sure.

“Maybe in another life, uh?” she asked with a wistful smile and for a brief moment, she wondered what that life could have been like.

“Need a lift?” he asked and that made her laugh despite her best efforts not to. It was nice of him to offer but the only person she flew with was Kara.

“No, but thank you for offering, Hope can you bring the car around please,” she ordered the A.I. and the loud rumbling of a muscle car's engine filled the air. Nicknamed the Hope-Mobile by Alex, which she hoped wouldn’t stick, she swung herself behind the wheel of the souped-up black beast she’d used to take Kara on their first date public date.

“See you back at the Tower, J’onn, and call me if Kate or BL find anything,” she said, giving the Martian a hopeful smile before revving the engine and screeching off down the street. It wasn’t as fun as flying but it got her from A to B.

“I’m detecting over a dozen life-signs in and around the building at our next target location and Mistress Zor-El is still engaged in hand-to-hand combat across town,” Hope informed her through the car’s speakers as a video-feed popped up in front of her eyes of Kara exchanging blows with a large reptilian beast.

Sparing a few moments to watch as her Kryptonian bride to bride fought with her eyes glowing and fists flying. The woman was magnificent to watch when she was in her element and she reminded herself to buy that ring soon.

“Any updates from Lex?” she asked as she forced herself to focus on the here and now and shifted gears as she blew through a police barricade before pulling a tight turn around a corner.

“None, do you want me to shock him when he uses his cell phone next time?” Hope playfully asked and she suspected the artificial intelligence that shared her head was developing a twisted sense of humor.

“Maybe… but keep me posted and fuck me... this doesn’t look good,” she cursed when she arrived at the scene of the next hot spot.

There were flipped over police cars and fires burning as people were running and she swung her legs out of the car before pulling out her sword. The people stopped and cheered, and she wished Lori could see her now.

* * *

Kara Zor-El growled and punched the hulking reptilian beast she’d been fighting for the past half an hour into the air, then she flew into the sky and slammed it back into the ground with a two-fisted overhead smash. Landing with an earthshaking and ground shattering crash, she lifted it up and headbutted it with authority twice until it was unconscious with its tongue hanging out of its mouth. Pools of acid sizzled on the street around them and her armor was sporting two burn marks on the right arm and the left shoulder which would need to be fixed.

“Lena are you there, babe?” she asked through their dedicated communications channel and adjusted her circlet as she scanned for more trouble to put down.

“A bit busy… oh stay down, you stupid man and know when you’re beaten!” Lena grunted in her earpiece and what followed was a loud thud and then a sickening cracking sound.

“Need any help over there?” she asked while trying not to sound worried and holding onto the edges of her cape she rose into the sky as the DEO arrived to gather up their missing inmate.

“I’m good, you focus on the big bads and I’ll take care of these idiots,” her raven-haired, now sporting purple highlights, lover responded.

“Roger that if you get in trouble use the signal-watch I gave you and... I miss you,” she replied and rising above the National City skyline she scanned for her next battle.

“Miss you too my love, talk later,” Lena said back in Kryptonian and she could hear the woman’s weapons powering up before the link went quiet.

Flying across the city she could see that her beloved home was a mess. Fires raged and most of the citizens were staying indoors as anarchy seemed to have descended overnight. Spotting someone she really didn’t want to see but also seeing that trouble was afoot she landed next to Lex Luthor himself. Lena’s brother was wearing a bulletproof vest over his pinstripe suit while ordering DEO agents to surround a building that housed a LexCorp laboratory.

“Lex,” she greeted him hoping her disdain wasn’t showing too much, but then she reminded herself that she was Kara Zor-El and he was the insignificant pest named Lex Luthor.

“Supergirl,” the man replied with the same amount of contempt in his voice as she felt for him. But only twenty-four hours ago she’d threatened to lobotomize him, so a bit of contempt was to be expected.

“What’s the situation?” she asked and did a quick X-ray scan of the building the DEO had on surrounded.

“Three escapees from one of our containment facilities got their hands on some prototype power-suits,” he answered and for once she didn’t have to drag the information out of him.

“They're holding hostages I assume, or you’d be rushing the building to get your toys back,” she nodded and then confirmed that by seeing the three power-suited escapees holding a group of scientists and workers hostage at arm-blaster-point.

“Well, at least she’s marrying you for your brains,” Lex commented spitefully, and she glared at him getting ready to save the hostages.

“Good you’re already getting used to the idea, good for you Lex,” she teased him and took off at top-speed which would have ruffled his hair if he had any. Barry was, of course, the fastest man alive, but she was no slouch in the speed department either.

The edges of her vision blurred as she darted in and out of the lab, snatching up the lab-workers and carrying them to safety before the power-suited escapees could blink let alone finish a whole sentence. With the workers safe she came to the stop in front of the black and green suited men and cracked her knuckles.

“One chance give up now,” she declared and allowed her heat-vision to flash but they never seemed to take her up on that offer.

Still operating at speeds beyond human comprehension she dodged the first punch, and the second one and the third one. It made her smile watching them stumble and fall all over themselves trying to land a blow.

Grabbing one of them by the wrist she flipped him over onto his back and followed up by disabling his suit by using her X-ray vision to locate the power-core in the suit. It was a crude replica of Lena’s suit she noted, and with a pin-point heat-vision blast, she disabled it making the joints in the suit cease up and freeze. Trapping the person wearing it in it. One down. Two to go. The idiots, of course, tried to blast her, but the lasers bounced harmlessly off her chest and shoulders.

“Now is not a good day to get on my bad side,” she casually remarked and not wanting to drag things out she hurled herself forward with enough speed to create a sonic boom and bashed their heads together with a resounding crack.

“I did give you one chance,” she reminded her now knocked out foes and casually dragged them outside to the waiting DEO agents and one befuddled Lex Luthor.

“Done, now any updates on Lori?” she asked the annoying bald man as she tossed the three escapees into the back of a waiting van.

“No… but who are you?” Lex asked curiously looking at her with that same look of curiosity Lena sometimes got in her eyes.

The question made a weird kind of sense, up until now she’d been Supergirl, bright and bubbly, but as more shades of Kara Zor-El shone through it was understandable that poor Lex would be confused.

“I told you yesterday at your office, I’m Kara Zor-El,” she answered him and got ready to take to the skies again.

“Wait,” he called after her and she stopped, giving him a withering look but something in his voice gave her pause.

“Is Lena... is she alright?” he asked and despite her best efforts she felt her disposition towards the insufferable man soften a tiny bit.

“A few bruised ribs, but you can’t keep a good Luthor down, you know that,” she replied and flashed him a disarming smile.

“I will get her back on my side, you know, that right?” he asked arrogantly and wasted whatever goodwill his previous question had earned him.

That statement, that Lena was like a thing or a price to be won, made her temper flare something fierce. Grabbing him by the front of his bulletproof vest she leaned in close to him and lowered her head down to his level. Truth to be told she wanted to grab him by the neck and lift him up from the ground, but there were too many people around.

“Listen to me, Lex Luthor of Earth, because I’m only going to say this once,” she angrily whispered at him. Allowing herself to feel all the anger she’d been burying deep down inside herself for the past day.

“Now, if you ever threaten Lena or my family again. I will burn everything you’ve built to the ground and you won’t even see me coming,” she went on with her voice icy in stark contrast to her flaming eyes.

“Before you say that a Super would never do that, let me remind you that I may have been the Paragon of Hope but it was Lena who gave me that hope,” she cut him off and pretended to brush some dust off his shoulders.

“So, I’m giving you a choice here Lex. Be a good brother Lena and help us out or don’t and stay the hell out of our way,” she finished and pulled away from him. Rising to her full height and acting like she'd not threatened him at all.

“Are we clear?” she asked and casually fixed his tie making sure to tighten it extra well for him.

“We’re clear,” he muttered, and she allowed herself to calm down even as she entertained thoughts of kicking him a few dozen feet down the street like a big bald football.

“Good, we’ll continue this talk later. Right now, we've got a city to save,” she said and blasted into the sky with enough force to knock him on his butt. That gave her a tiny amount of satisfaction but didn’t lessen the pain in her heart. They had to get this situation under control so they could continue looking for Lori.

* * *

Pushing through the reporters outside a mall she’d finished securing. Lena dragged a bruised and bloody beast of a man through the mall´s parking lot and hurled him into a waiting police car. This one had gotten his hands on some kind of strength-enhancing serum and thought it would be a wonderful idea to try and hold an entire mall to ransom. She’d put stop to that with extreme prejudice and wiped the blood from her nose from the blow she’d taken. Because Kara would worry if she saw that.

“Hope, Hope, any comment on the chaos sweeping the city?” an admittedly pretty redhead reporter asked and stuffed a microphone in her face. Despite her annoyance, she could at least take solace in the fact that the mask and purple highlights were working.

“We’re working with the authorities and the DEO find the cause of it and to stabilize the situation. Until then we ask all citizens to stay at home and oh crap!” she cursed and pushed the reporter behind herself as the heavy with his muscles swollen by the serum burst out of the police car. Should have broken his knees she thought to herself.

“We’re not done little girl!” the deformed beast of a man roared but she grabbed his hands in a test of strength while pushing back against him as the dark green veins again showed up under her skin.

“Nanites at maximum capacity Miss Luthor, failsafes are in effect,” Hope spoke in her head and she grunted as she pushed him away from the redheaded reporter.

“You really want round two?” she grunted and went back to the headbutting well again as she smashed her forehead against his nose with a resounding crack. Luthors were known for their thick skulls after all.

“Because you should have learned your lesson earlier,” she went on and kicked him square in the balls with the toe of the heavy black boot she wore.

“And I don’t really have the time to spare your ego or your bones this time,” she grunted and twisted his hands backward until the bones in his wrists cracked.

Forcing him to his knees as he howled in pain, but she kept pushing his hands backward until his fingers crunched from the force of her grip and her rage. Her eyes were glowing bright green and she could feel the nanites coursing through her body as no doubt the people gather around her saw it too as more dark green veins appeared on her face. Dropping his ruined hands, she roundhouse-kicked him in the head, and he swayed from side to side before falling to the ground with a loud crash.

Rising to up to her full height she looked around for any other sign of trouble as the heavy she'd put down groaned and whimpered on the ground at her feet trying to clutch his crotch with broken hands. Cell phone cameras snapped pictures of her and then she remembered the reporter. Turning around she could see the woman staring up at her from the ground.

“Are you alright?” she asked the reporter while offering the woman her hand and the shocked redhead took it.

“That was… wow… you don’t mess around, do you?” the stunned reporter asked, and she flashed the redhead a smirk which made her blush.

“I feel like I should remind you that you are now engaged to Mistress Zor-El,” Hope reminded her through the implant below her ear and she made a note to train the A.I. in the subtleties of human interaction.

“Well, it’s been a long day and you can quote me on that,” she shrugged and had the A.I. summon the car as the growl of the engine filled the air again.

“For the record, you’re doing amazing work, is there anything I can do to help?” the reporter asked as she got into the car.

“Keep reporting on what’s going, and if you see this girl... my number is with the picture,” she replied and with a mental nudge, Hope sent Lori’s picture to the reporter's phone.

“What picture?” the reporter asked right when her phone vibrated, and she hoped she didn’t look too sad and beaten. Heroes didn’t look sad or beaten no matter what.

“Her name is Lori,” she explained as another alarm flashed at her from the corner of her eyes.

“I’ll see what I can find,” the redhead reporter nodded, and she revved the engine before speeding off because she did not need to cry over the kindness of strangers right now.

Speeding down the street en route to the next emergency on her list it hit her like a ton of bricks when she got a splitting headache and almost crashed into a lamppost before being able to straighten the car out. Blinking away the bright spots in front of her eyes she gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“Hope what was that?” she asked with a groan and pulled the car to the side of the road to analyze what had happened and maybe throw up.

“Unknown at this time. Your neurons were firing at a higher rate than usual for approximately three seconds,” Hope chimed in through the car’s speakers.

“Keep an eye on that and…. ugh... fuck!” she cursed as the headache came back in force and the head-up display in front of her eyes filled with static.

“Lena, Little Lena Luthor, how the mighty have fallen,” a spiteful female voice echoed in her head.

“Who…” she groaned but someone was overriding her systems and she couldn’t flush them out since Hope seemed to be offline.

“You could have ruled this world but look at you now! Running around in a purple mask and a ponytail playing the hero and planning to make happy little families with that blonde alien floozy!” the voice spoke in her head and she tried and failed to reach for the signal watch on her wrist.

It had been a gift that had come with a suggestion, more like an urgent request, that she should wear it. Kara had pressed it into her hands when they’d left the Tower earlier and told her that it was for if everything else failed. Well, right now everything else was failing.

“Will find you…” she spat out through clenched teeth so tightly that it felt like they would break and the voice in her head laughed.

“No, you won’t. You see, I’m very good at falling through the cracks. Tell me are you enjoying my little gift to your city?” the voice asked with a cackle and she tried to reach the signal watch again.

It felt like her mind was on fire, memories and random bits of data flashed before her eyes. Images of Kara smiling at her and handing her the watch asking her to be careful. Herself then promising that she’d be as careful as the blonde would be. Kara and her hugging before they left the Tower. Followed by another burst of static in front of her eyes.

“Kara… and I… will… Aaah!” she screamed and banged her head back against the driver’s seat headrest in pain as she tried in vain to activate the watch.

“Does it hurt Little Lena Luthor? Well I’ve got another gift for you that will make it hurt even more,” the voice mocked her, and a vision of Lori flashed in front of her eyes. The blonde little alien was sleeping on a small cot in a glass cell, the ridges on her nose scrunched up and her eyes twitching.

“NO! You give her back!” she shouted but then the image and the voice faded, and she was left alone in her car.

“Give her back! Take me!” she shouted towards the sky and thrashed about in futile anger making the car shake violently.

“Miss Luthor I am back online, are you alright?” Hope asked in her ear and there was a softness and a worry to the A.I.’s voice.

“No… I’m not fucking alright!” she shouted and stepped out of the car. Leaning over by the side of the road trying not to throw up she waited for the nanites to stabilize her vitals again.

“What can I do to help?” Hope asked with what almost sounded like concern and she wondered if she’d made her constant companion too well.

“Find me something to punch! If whoever that was, gave the scum of this city tech then someone will talk,” she growled and tightened the black gloves of her suit as she felt the nanites rushing through her body.

“Finding you something to punch,” Hope chimed, and her vision filled with hot spots around the city that needed to be put down.

It was a few hours later when Kara found her. She was stepping out of a warehouse filled by beaten and bruised bodies with an angry look of sheer grit and determination on her face. There were a few rips in her suit now and she was breathing heavily as she looked around for someone new to vent her anger on. Still, no matter how many of them she put down it didn’t take the pain away and none of them could answer her one burning question. Where was Lori?

Seeing Kara hovering next to her car, she noticed that the blonde hero’s armor was scuffed and there was a large tear in the red flowing cape. It looked like they’d both had a long day of fighting between them and being face-to-face with the blonde made her self-conscious about the blood on her hands.

“Lena… it’s time to come home,” Kara spoke softly hovering about an inch of the ground while surveying the carnage she’d wrought during her one-woman rampage across the city. The warehouse district was on fire, some of them started by her in her righteous rage and the sounds of sirens filled the air.

“No, one of them has to know something,” she protested and started walking past the hovering blonde to get into the car but Kara flew in front of her with a serious expression on her regal face.

"Look I had J'onn try and read the minds of a dozen of the guys you left bleeding back there and they don't know anything! So all you're doing is hurting people here and that's not who you are!" Kara replied, barely raising her voice but she could see the cracks in the blonde's calm exterior. Kara was angry too but doing a much better job of keeping that anger in check then she was. That was a good thing since after last time Kara Zor-El got angry it had leveled a good chunk of Kaznia.

“Look, Kate thinks she’s close to finding something, Barry said he detected some weird radiation bursts and you can’t keep running yourself ragged like this,” the blonde went on now pleading with her and blocked her path with her muscular arms crossed over her chest.

“No, this was all planned, there is a method to all this and one of these pieces of shit has to know something! Look, maybe J'onn missed something or I just need to... I need to... look just get out of my way!” she argued with her voice rising higher and higher as she tried to force herself past Kara. Again, the towering Kryptonian didn't budge.

“Lena, you asked me the first night we spent together that if you ever went too far into that dark place inside of you, then I’d stop you… well, this is me stopping you,” the blonde hero spoke softly and put a caring hand on her shoulder.

“Let go of me,” she hissed but the grip that could bend steel didn’t yield and they stared each other down in the fading light of what had been a very long day.

“No, we’re in this together now, you and me,” Kara countered and pulled her in closer even though she tried to resist.

“But I need to find her, they showed me her and she looked so scared,” she begged with a pathetic wail and the pain in Kara’s blue eyes didn’t help matters.

“I know... Hope showed me,” the blonde admitted sadly, taking both of her hands and kissing them despite the blood on them.

“I am sorry Miss Luthor, but I felt that Mistress Zor-El should be informed seeing as your relationship status has recently changed,” Hope apologized through Kara’s suit so its voice could be heard by them both.

“Then why aren’t you helping me!” she shouted and bashed her fist against Kara’s unmoving chest.

“I am helping you! But we can't go from one place to the next beating people up, that's not who we are! So, tell me what I can do, please Lena?” her blonde Kryptonian begged with her voice cracking and pleaded with her through her blue eyes.

“I don’t know!” she roared as she yanked her hands from Kara’s gentle grasp and futilely beat her fists against the chest of the blonde hero’s armor.

“You are the smartest woman on the planet, use that big beautiful brain of yours,” Kara whispered but didn’t flinch at her grief-stricken outburst.

Looking up at her blonde hero she swallowed hard. Those blue eyes were so understanding and held such pools of strength in their sapphire depths. But, no matter how she tried she couldn’t get the image of Lori out of her mind. She knew that she had to calm down and think straight but she felt paralyzed by all her fears and doubts right then. Though, there was one way she knew would take her mind off things.

“Help me forget, if only for a moment?” she whispered while feeling small and useless but let her hands run over Kara’s strong chest, down her sides, and onto the blonde's hips.

“Here?” Kara asked quietly but without judgment only love and she nodded her head shamefully.

“Please,” she begged and in response, her blonde lover gently kissed her while pushing her onto the hood of the car.

Wrapping her arms around Kara’s neck she kissed the blonde woman harder than she'd ever kissed her before. She needed to forget, and she needed to get all these terrible thoughts out of her mind if only for a moment. In response to her silent begging, her lover, her rock, her Kara, unzipped the front of the black DEO suit and then Kara Zor-El took her on the hood of the car as the sun was setting over a city in chaos. And for a moment she did forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! These kinds of chapters are so much harder to write then the chapters with them just being cute and banging all over Lena's apartment.
> 
> I'm slow-burning who the villain is here on purpose, but writing angry Lena is fun even though she's been through so much shit already.
> 
> Also, I had to go through the 70.000 words and replace grumbled with crumbled, because dyslexia sucks and I'm anal about editing.


	13. Breakthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara does something very nice for Lena while the green-eyed genius finally uses her brain instead of her fists and Lex almost does a good deed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be plot!
> 
> Also in case it's been unclear Kara wears the Season 4 Supergirl armor in this story but with added cape and Kryptonian writing covering it. She does this to honor both Lena and her Kryptonian heritage 🤓

Kara woke up before Lena even stirred and quietly swung her long legs out of their bed. With a glance at her sleeping beloved, the Kryptonian pulled on a pair of pale blue silk pajamas before she set about cleaning up their apartment and making them breakfast while her raven-haired lover slept.

Lena had slept fitfully the entire night and she’d stayed awake for most of it to make sure that her lover got enough sleep. It wasn't that difficult for her to go a night without sleep since she didn’t need as much in terms of it as a human and could get by on sunlight and potstickers if need be. And any bit of grumpiness would be worth it if it meant that Lena got a good night's sleep in exchange.

After tidying up their apartment and making sure Lena would have something to eat and water for her tea once she finally woke up, she headed for the apartment’s washroom. Pulling the black DEO suit that Lena had worn during her rampage through National City out of the washing machine she sighed at the state of it. The green-eyed genius in her reckless quest for answers had taken more than a few hits and the suit sported several gashes in it as proof. 

“What am I going to do about you?” she asked the suit and by proxy her wife to be.

Shaking her head, she picked up a needle and thread and started patching it up the best she could. This would be her second patch-up job since getting Lena to come home last night. The earlier patch-up job having been tending to the woman’s cuts and bruises that the overwhelmed nanites in Lena's blood had failed to handle.

While tending to her lover's wounds the night before, she’d tried to explain to her, that the green-eyed genius wasn’t the only one who wanted to find Lori. That she too, cared deeply for the little alien child as well and how every waking minute was a struggle to keep from unleashing her rage.

In her heart she knew that she could easily tear the city, the country, the world apart to find Lori, but she couldn’t allow herself to do that. For now, she had to keep calm, keep her focus and once they found out who took Lori then and only then would she unleash her power on the persons responsible. 

A part of her also wanted to ask Lena to take a step back and heal, but it wouldn’t be fair to ask the wonderful but stubborn woman to take a backseat in the hunt for Lori. Though she desperately wanted her to, since Lena, her precious Lena, was only human no matter how much the nanites enhanced her strength and sped up her recovery times.

The night before the raven-haired beauty had tried to hide the bleeding cuts and ugly bruises, but she’d seen them. Every single cut and bruise on that perfect pale skin and every single drop of dried red blood. Clenching her fist she focused on fixing the torn up suit instead.

After fixing the gash on the side of the suit and another on the left arm she heard her cell phone vibrating and putting down the needle she picked it up. It was Clark and she guessed she better get this conversation over with before Lena woke up. The suit was beyond repair anyways and she was only patching it up to keep herself busy and not thinking of Lori.

“Hey Clark,” she whispered and walked onto the balcony to soak up some of that morning sun so as not to wake Lena.

“Hey, how are you holding up?” Clark asked and she cradled the phone next to her ear as she spread her arms toward the rising sun.

“Been better, Lena is asleep and before you say anything I know she went a bit overboard last night,” she answered and closed her eyes as the yellow rays of Earth’s sun danced on her skin.

“I know, I saw the news from last night, some are calling her a hero, others a vigilante,” he said, and she frowned. Lena wasn’t a vigilante! She only wanted to find who took Lori.

“And what do you think?” she asked and slowly opened her eyes to look out over her city.

National City was calm today and maybe as a benefit from Lena’s rampage, it would remain calm and peaceful. As Kate had quoted Batman once; criminals were a cowardly and superstitious lot. And last night Lena had been vengeance personified.

“I think she wants to find that child more than anything,” he diplomatically replied, and she shook her head. That was the Kal-El she knew, always the non-offensive one.

“Me too... Clark, I never got the chance to ask… what do you think of, well, Lena and I being together?” she asked, biting nervously on her lip.

Granted she didn’t care much what Clark thought either way, but he was family and she had rather impulsively asked Lena to marry her without much warning to either the green-eyed genius or anyone else for that matter. 

“Does she make you happy?” he asked without hesitation and that gave her pause. Not because Lena didn’t make her happy but because the question was coming from Clark and she’d been expecting a lot more are-you-sures and "she’s a Luthor" from her cousin.

“Yes, more than anyone has since we lost Argo City,” she replied while biting back a choking sob at the memories of her mother wiped out by the anti-matter wave.

“Then that’s all that matters,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice when he said that.

“Tell her she’s onto a winner!” Lois shouted in the background and that caused her to chuckle.

“You heard the lady, you need to get her a proper Super-suit though because that blue armband won’t do,” Clark laughed, and she grinned at the thought of that. 

“That would make Lex so mad!” she laughed and that earned an even deeper laugh from Kal over the phone.

“Well, she’s one of us now and he can go suck an egg for all I care,” he laughed, and this felt good talking to Kal like this after everything that had happened.

“You’ll be there, right Kal? When, I marry her? No idea when or where that will happen, but you know eventually?” she asked hopefully while reverting to his Kryptonian name. Allowing herself to rise up from the balcony to feel the wind on her face.

“Of course, we wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he replied, and she felt herself smiling happily for the first time in two days.

“Thank you, I’m going to get some things ready for her. Talk to you later alright?” she asked and rose higher into the sky.

“Of course, good luck and we’re all still searching for Lori, tell Lena that,” Clark somberly said, and she nodded.

“Goodbye Kal,” she said in softspoken Kryptonian and hung up as she did yet another scan of the city in the vain hope of finding Lori. But once more there was no trace, no sight or sound of the little blonde alien that had called Lena, her mommy.

“A new suit,” she said to herself and with a burst of speed, she changed into her blue and red armor that Lena had crafted for her back when they’d been just friends. How far they’d come since then she thought with a wistful smile.

Using her X-ray vision to check in on Lena in their bedroom she wrote down a quick note in case the sleeping woman woke up before she got back. Doing science stuff, be back soon, love Kara. It read and she placed it next to the tea set and the stack of pancakes she’d made earlier before taking off for the Tower and then for the Fortress. If Lena needed a new suit, then she’d provide that. 

A few minutes later she landed inside the darkened Tower where she gathered up what was usable of Lena’s old Hope-suit and looked around to see if anyone was there. Seeing no one, she turned to leave but then her hearing picked up a strange sound and she turned back around to follow it to the source. When she looked behind one of the desks where the sound was coming from Nia’s big eyes met hers. Well, this was an interesting development.

“Good morning, you two,” she chuckled as Nia held Brainy’s black DEO suit to cover herself and the new director of the DEO was very much nude next to the young woman.

“Please don’t tell J’onn!” Nia blurted out and the young woman’s eyes were pleading, and she had a look of under embarrassment on her round face.

“I would appreciate it if J’onn wasn’t informed as well,” Brainy nodded and put his arm around the younger hero with a serious look on his angular features.

“My lips are sealed, so am I to assume that this is a clandestine hook-up?” she asked and turned her back on her friends for their modesty's sake.

“It is, my current posting has thrown up some barriers to Nia and mine’s ongoing relationship,” Brainy explained and she shook her head. 

“So, we’re meeting in secret, this way they won’t find out about us,” Nia explained, and she heard them getting dressed.

“As long as you two are happy, that’s all that matters,” she said and turned around to see them both suited up and still awkwardly bouncing on the balls of their feet.

“We are,” they both said at once and she couldn’t help but to laugh at how adorable the fledging couple looked.

“That’s good, say, Brainy, can I take a quick look at your Legion ring?” she asked and with a suspicious look the twelfth level intelligence held out his hand.

“Thank you, you know the tech in this thing isn’t that complicated when you really get down to it on the microscopic level,” she told him and ran a quick X-ray scan of the ring while memorizing its design.

“Are you then finally done playing dumb as they say? It’s been infuriating watching you for the past few months,” he deadpanned and, of course, he’d known, he was from the future after all.

“Yep done playing dumb! You two better go have some breakfast. Go treat your girl to some pancakes Brainy,” she ordered him in her best big sister voice and tucked the remains of Lena’s Hope-Suit under her arm for the flight up north to the Fortress.

“Yes, treat me to some pancakes Brainy,” Nia laughed as they ganged upon him to be more boyfriendy.

“I guess it wouldn’t be viewed with too much suspicion if we had a… breakfast date?” he asked, and she could have sworn Nia squealed and bounced.

“You two have fun, I’m off to the Fortress, Lena needs a new suit and I need a fiancée who doesn’t need to be patched up every night,” she laughed but Nia was already kissing a very confused Brainy to notice so she left the two lovebirds to their secret date. At least there was hope and love in the midst of all this chaos.

* * *

Lena woke up with a pained grunt, she’d been having the nicest dream. In it, Kara, Lori and her, had been having a fun little picnic in the Fortress of Solitude with Kara teaching the blonde little girl Kryptonian, but as reality set in she found herself alone in bed. Kara’s spot next to her was empty and a quick look at the clock showed that it was close to noon. Sitting up she rubbed her eyes and if anything, her body ached more today than it had yesterday.

“Hope, status?” she asked the A.I. and dragged herself out of bed before catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

“Your vitals are holding steady, though I would suggest you eat something,” Hope replied in her head as she cocked her head from side to side looking at her reflection.

Wearing only a pair of small shorts borrowed from Kara, she noticed that she looked leaner than she’d done in years. Muscles were showing on her arms, along with a few green veins on her pale skin that hadn’t faded from the night before and her legs were more toned. Running around playing superhero seemed to have a certain side benefit but she’d also been working out more and working on her fencing.

“Hope, bring up a comparison image of me from a year ago,” she ordered the A.I. and put her augmented reality contacts back in her eyes.

“Yes, bringing up a reference image now,” Hope chimed and standing in front of the mirror again she could see a hologram of herself from a year ago projected over how she looked now.

Definitely leaner, though her breasts and hips were still prominent, which was good because Kara seemed to adore getting her warm hands on those. Shaking her head at her own vanity she pulled on a dress-shirt of Kara’s and buttoned it up around herself. Where had the blonde gone this morning?

Stepping out of their bedroom she could see that the apartment was spotless, and her eyes and nose were drawn to a plate with a bowl over it that smelled like pancakes and next to it was a note in a teacup.

“Doing science stuff,” she chuckled at the words on the paper and lifted up the bowl to reveal a healthy-looking stack of pancakes. Grabbing the syrup, she proceeded to drown the pancakes in the golden liquid. 

“Want me to try and contact Mistress Zor-El?” Hope asked and she shook her head before digging into the syrup covered goodness Kara had left for her to enjoy.

“No, she’s probably busy and we’ve got work to do,” she said and walked to the living room. 

Last night’s rampage through National City had calmed her down somewhat, though she was still angry and planned on driving her sword through whoever had taken Lori. But Kara had been right, she was the smartest woman on the planet, and it was high time she acted like it!

“Hope, can you interface with the Tower’s system and call a few people for me?” she asked and stood in front of the wall-mounted wide-screen television in their living room. Their living room, their apartment, their family. She liked this new way of thinking about her life. 

“Interfacing now, who do you want me to call?” Hope responded and the TV turned itself on but instead of the latest episode of Love Island, it was the Hope interface taking over the screen.

“Let’s start with that Kate woman,” she said and bit into another fork-full of delicious pancakes as the TV made a loud dialing noise.

“J’onn it’s too early… oh, you’re not J’onn,” Kate, also known as Batwoman also known as that flirty redhead, yawned when she popped up on the TV. The petite hero was wearing only a black silk robe while sporting a serious case of bed head with what looked like a massive cave in the background. 

“Nope, and I could never get my voice that low,” she conceded with a smirk and took another fork-full of pancakes.

"I'd take you over him on my screen any day, always knew Kara had good taste. So, what can I do for you, future Misses Zor-El?” the short-haired hero asked while trying in vain to push her messy head of black hair down but it sprung straight up into the air again. 

“Kara said you had a lead on Lori, I wanted to follow up on you with that,” she said, smirking at the comment about Kara's good taste and had Hope bring up the data she already had on the screen.

“Of course sending you the data now. I tried to chase down the source of the weapon shipments that came into National City before it all went to hell, but every single one of them goes dark in the same location,” Kata explained and brought up a map of North America showing the trails of the weapon shipments as they entered National City. 

"Thank you and that can't be a coincidence," she observed the trails and how they all went dead somewhere on the East Coast.

"It's not paranoia if they're really after you right? And good work last night by the way," Kate praised her and that reminded her of something Kara had told her when she'd come to fetch her at the warehouse the night before.

“Hold on, let me call up the Boy in Bright Red,” she said and that got a chuckle out of the Bat. Maybe this woman wasn’t so bad after all, although the tattoos were a distraction. 

“J’onn… you’re not J’onn and you’re both in pajamas… hold on…” Barry Allen, the Flash, answered on his phone and then seemingly rushed somewhere before reappearing on the screen again.

“Something wrong Mr. Allen?” she asked and then realized she was wearing nothing but a pair of small shorts and a half-buttoned dress-shirt.

“I’m a married man here, I can’t have two women video-calling me at home in their pajamas!” he protested and that made both her and Kate laugh.

“Don’t be a prude Allen,” Kate chuckled but did tighten her robe up a little bit to ease the man’s worried married mind.

“Yeah plus you can tell your wife that you’re so not our type, cute but not our type,” she laughed but did concede to fully buttoning up the shirt she’d borrowed from Kara’s closet.

“You will understand soon enough Hope, and please it’s Barry,” he told her but he did give a cheerful smile on his face and something told her that nothing ever got this man down. Much like Kara.

“Only if you call me Lena, I assume we can dispense with the alter-egos?” she asked and they both nodded at her from the screen.

“Of course, now what do you need Lena? I’m guessing this about Lori?” he asked, and she gave a sad nod.

“Kara told me last night you had detected some. in her words. weird radiation bursts, do you have the data on that for me?” she asked and started pulling the data together in front of her.

An email from Black Lighting arrived just then adding some much-needed information to the map that she was building along with an invite to dinner for her and Kara when this was all over.

“Oh sure, sending it your way now, it wasn't big, but it tripped a few sensors at StarLabs,” he said, and the data lit up in front of her eyes.

“Thank you, Kate can you take a look at the map I’m sending you?” she asked and realized that she must have looked like a crazy person moving her hands in front of her like she was doing. The side-effect of the augmented reality holograms that Hope generated is that they were only visible to her.

“Oh, good catch Moonshine, the source of the radiation burst overlaps with where my trail went cold,” Kate commented, and she raised a silent eyebrow at that nickname.

“And BL's info narrows it down and oh, I get it! Kara is Sunshine and you being all pale makes you Moonshine!” Barry laughed and she threw him a withering look.

“Shutting up now! Anything else you need before I go back to breakfast and somehow explain to Iris why two undressed women video-called me?” he asked and glanced to the side. Hold on was he hiding in the bathroom? She thought with a laugh.

“No, we’re good. Thank you, Barry, give my best to the wife,” she laughed and winked at him. Unable to resist teasing him a little bit but she could see why Kara liked him so much.

“Oh no, I wonder if I can somehow avoid this topic with her until the heat death of the universe. Anyways, call me if you need me,” he laughed and ended the call, leaving only Kate and her.

“You’re as bad as Kara said you were,” Kate laughed leaning back in her throne-like chair in front of what she guessed was a massive workstation.

“I could be much worse Bats,” she chuckled and picked her almost finished stack of pancakes. Despite her original jealousy towards this woman, she was finding herself liking her more and more as they talked. 

“For the record, nothing happened, you know between me and Kara, but she was pretty broken up after you two fought in Kaznia,” the Bat said but there was no wavering in her voice and she believed her because she trusted Kara.

“I know, she told me and thanks for looking out for her while I was taking that very long nap,” she replied and gave the vigilante hero a smile.

“Hey that's friends are for, right?” Kate asked and before she could answer a gust of wind signaled Kara’s arrival back at their apartment.

“Are we having a video conferencing pajama party?” the blonde hero asked and placed a triangle-shaped box on the couch before joining her in front of the TV.

“Just touching base with Kate and Barry, missed you this morning,” she said, and it was maybe a little bit petty, but she got up on her toes and kissed Kara on the cheek so that Kate saw.

“And that’s my cue! You two do whatever happily engaged girls do because I’m going back to bed!” Kate chuckled and got up from her chair which made Kara laugh.

“You know exactly what we do,” the blonde taunted the Bat and she could have sworn the woman blushed.

“I stand by my previous statement. I liked you better when you were in the closet and not this ballsy,” Kate joked and that made her give the blonde a questioning look.

“I’ll be ready if you need me, Sunshine, Moonshine;” the vigilante hero said with a nod before they could respond and ended the call.

“Oh Moonshine, because you drink a lot and you’re pale, that’s funny!” Kara exclaimed and she wanted to pout at being teased like that. But Luthors didn’t pout. 

“Missed you this morning,” she instead said and wrapped her arms around the blonde’s neck.

“For the record, it’s almost noon and I had to go make you something at the Fortress,” Kara countered but did bend down and give her a proper good morning kiss.

“Doing science stuff, yes I saw the note, what were you up to?” she asked and glanced at the triangle-shaped box on the couch.

“So don’t be mad, but I tried to fix your DEO suit this morning but that thing is ruined and your Hope-suit was a pile of scraps at the Tower so I kind of made you a Super-suit and I hope you like it,” the blonde hero blurted out and dashed to the couch before returning holding out the triangle-shaped black and purple box.

“You… you made me a suit?” she asked and looked between the black and purple triangle and the smiling blonde Kryptonian.

“Based on your designs, but yep and I borrowed some Legion tech too and oh please put it on already,” Kara urged her and wiggled the box that was shaped in the form of the House of El crest, now that she got a better look at it, in front of her.

“I… wow….” she stammered and accepted this amazing gift from Kara with shaking hands. Kara Zor-El was a genius and how on Earth had she gotten so lucky.

“How... how do I activate it?” she asked and turned the small box over in her hands. It felt warm, and as cliché as it sounded this felt like it had been made with love.

“Put it against your chest and Hope will do the rest,” Kara explained and with a silent nod, she placed the glistening metal box against her chest.

“Hope you heard Mistress Zor-El, can you activate this thing?” she asked, and the box lit up with a brilliant purple light and gave a loud humming noise.

“Accessing now, oh she is a smart one, isn’t she?” Hope commented and it was rapidly developing a personality all of its own it would seem.

“Go on, I want to see how it looks like on you!” Kara urged her and bounced up and down like an excited puppy.

“Alright, Hope, hit it!” she laughed and felt the box started to expand over her body.

First to take shape was the purple-colored House of El crest across her chest. Glowing from within and then the black suit with purple piping spread over her arms and legs. 

It felt different from how her old suit had felt against her skin. The old suit even after Dox’s upgrades had always felt cold but this one was like a warm blanket enveloping her and it seemed to merge seamlessly with both Hope and the nanites in her blood. Purple boots and a chromic purple belt formed around her waist and feet. Flexing her fingers in the dark purple gauntlets she turned them over and in the palms were her beam emitters. 

“Wow, I’m marrying an incredible woman,” she muttered and flexed her arms and shoulders to get a feel for the new suit.

The shoulders were padded for extra protection and the suit's neckline was high giving more protection to her neck. Accessing the neural interface she tried activating the helmet, like on her old suit and with a whirring sound it materialized over her head. Seeing Kara’s smiling face through the visor she could see the data feeds popping up one by one as Hope interfaced with the suit’s systems.

“Do you like it? I even put a sheath for your sword on the back!” Kara asked and rushed into the bedroom before returning with the sword.

“Where are the jets?” she asked and ran through the suit’s systems one by one as Kara carefully slipped the sword into the sheath on her back.

“Oh no jets this time! You have Legion flight tech now! You see, I scanned Brainy’s ring and figured it out,” Kara laughed, and she accessed the flight controls and with a yelp, her feet rose about a foot from the ground.

“And the crest…” she asked and managed to land again while running her fingers across the House of El crest that was glowing on her chest.

“I… well... I used my suit as a blueprint, and you can totally change that if you want! Like you can put a big L on there or maybe an H for Hope,” the blonde Kryptonian blurted out and she deactivated the helmet to smile at the incredible but silly woman.

“This already does stand for Hope,” she said softly and Kara squeed before giving her a bone-crushing hug.

“Thank you, thank you, you have no idea how much that means to me!” the blonde blurted out and lifted her up from the floor.

“Oh, and there is a signal watch built into it and a few more goodies too,” the blonde went on excitedly while still holding her up from the floor with her feet dangling.

“I have some idea how much it means to you based on these super-hugs! Now put me down for a second because I think I’ve got a lead on where she is,” she said and kicked her feet making Kara put her down.

“Oh where?” the blonde hero asked excitedly, and she brought up the map of the country on the TV again. A message from Lex popped up and they both looked at each other in amazement. Not only had Lex come through but he'd provided the last piece of the puzzle.

“Looks like we’re going to Metropolis,” she said as she brought together the information and data from Kate, Barry, Black Lightning and now Lex. It all converged on the place she’d used to call home. 

“That’s uncanny I literally talked to Kal this morning, he is going to freak,” Kara said with a shocked expression on her face.

“But we’re closer, right?” the blonde then asked with so much hope in her blue eyes that she felt that familiar fist clenching around her heart.

“Yeah, we’re getting closer. What do you say we go find our girl?” she asked, and Kara gave a determined nod. Time to go where it all had started for her. Back to Metropolis!

* * *

Lori woke up and blinked her eyes a few times. She’d been dreaming that she was in a castle made of ice having a picnic with Mommy and Supergirl, but now she was back in her glass box and she tried to push against the glass with her hands, but nothing happened.

“You’re awake, did you have a nice nap?” the mean lady who said nasty things about mommy asked her while watching her through the glass.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, being brave like Supergirl would be brave and puffed out her chest. She could never see the lady’s face because it was always dark on the other side of the box they’d put her in.

“You’re a very brave girl Lori," the mean lady said, pretending to be nice, and she stuck out her tongue. She didn’t like the mean lady one bit! She’d hurt Lena!

“But very rude too,” the mean lady laughed, and her eyes were glowing, but it wasn’t a nice glow like how mommy’s eyes glowed when she was Hope.

“You’re not my mommy,” she said with her arms crossed over her chest in the same pose mommy did when she was Hope.

“I know, I’m so much more than your mommy,” the mean lady laughed and started walking away.

“Mommy and Supergirl will come and save me!” she shouted and pounded her fist against the glass making it shake.

“I’m counting on it,” the mean lady said in her ugly and evil voice and kept walking away leaving her all alone again. Mommy would come and she had to keep being brave. Because mommy would figure out where she was and would come with Supergirl to rescue her and beat up the mean lady.

* * *

Lex Luthor paced around his office muttering to himself that this wasn’t the plan and that blonde Kryptonian was ruining everything just like her cousin had done in Metropolis. But Supergirl's words kept repeating in his head. "Be a good brother to Lena or get the hell out of our way. " Then his cell phone rang, and it was a number he didn’t recognize.

“Who is this?” he answered it while getting back behind his desk and tapping away on his laptop to start a trace on the call.

“We have an offer for you,” the voice, heavily distorted, said over the line and he watched the trace bouncing from country to country. Whoever this was they were good.

“I’m listening…” he said and tapped on his keyboard with more urgency to try to narrow the trace down.

“We have something that Kara Zor-El and your sister want. So, how does a bit of revenge for how that alien treated you sound to you?” the voice asked, and he froze. 

This would be perfect, he could take out both of them, Lena would come back and Supergirl would be taken out of action. His mind ran through all the possibilities about how he could use this to his advantage. But then Supergirl’s word rang again in his head. “Be a good brother to Lena.”

“And what’s in it for you?” he asked, trying to keep them talking and get a better trace on their location.

“You get your sister back once I’ve broken her and destroyed that blonde alien floozy,” the voice laughed, and he was close, just a bit longer. Then it pinged, it was coming from near Metropolis.

“As tempting as that sounds, I’m going to politely decline your offer,” he said and the voice on the other end of the line screamed in frustration when he uploaded a rather annoying virus to their systems for good measure before they could shut him out.

“Good luck, you’re going to need it when they find you,” he chuckled and hung up on the call. Studying the location he'd narrowed down, he thought long and hard about what to do, but he’d given them his word and a Luthor was only as good as his word. So, with a few more taps he messaged Lena the coordinates. He would play the long game when it came to his sister and her pet Kryptonian and for now he’d be, as Supergirl had put it, the good brother.

* * *

Somewhere in the timestream on the Waverider, Sara Lance wasn't having a good morning, as they were rushing to get back the right point in time to warn Kara and Lena Luthor. The two idiots were walking into a trap and they had to warn them. The Waverider shook violently and Constantine gave a loud and colorful curse as he tried to weave some sort of spell to break whatever was blocking them from reentering reality. 

"Ray, why can't we break through to them?" Sara shouted as Constantine's chanting grew louder and louder.

"Working on it, it's like a temporal storm is raging around their current point in the timeline!" the shrinking scientist yelled back as a console exploded into sparks.

"Keep working on it! John can you get through?" she called out to the magician working his magic while kneeling in a hastily drawn pentagram on the floor of the Waverider.

"Trying luv, trying, but it's nasty out there," he muttered with his eyes closed as the candles around him dimmed and then flared to live again.

"Try harder! If we don't warn them in time she will burn the entire planet to cinders!" she reminded them and again their vessel shook as they made another attempt at breaking through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, wow I sound like an Instagram influencer, but I wanted to say hello to you all that are still reading this weird little tale of mine and I hope that you're all doing good in these weird times we find ourselves in. (For the future readers of this rant we are all self-isolating at home and losing our minds, Google it!).
> 
> Now I do plan on writing as much as I can get away with in between working from home, being nice to my significant other, cleaning the house like a crazy person and trying to keep sane with the rest of you wonderful people.
> 
> This chapter was what I call a transition chapter, we have a goal, we have a villain and the girls are about to go on a roadtrip!
> 
> Finally, I've also branched out a little it and started throwing some shorter stuff up over on my Tumblr (which is a platform I don't understand btw) but if you look up ReturningWriter over there you'll find some ficlets and chat fics to satisfy any SuperCorp gravings you might have in between the days it takes me to type up and edit another chapter the longer stuff that I post on here.
> 
> So stay safe, keep calm and thank you for reading.


	14. The City of Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Lena travel to Metropolis where they share memories of their youth while looking for who took Lori with a little bit of help from a certain spitcurled cousin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tiny bit shorter chapter today guys. I'm quite obsessive about delivering at least 5.000+ words a chapter for you to enjoy, especially these days since we all need the distraction, but this one read better when I kept it short and focused.

After a hypersonic flight across the country with Lena making use of her draft Kara landed on the globe on top of the Daily Planet building with her armored genius following close behind. Lena was still a bit unsteady in her flying as she adjusted to the change from jets to flight-ring tech, but the woman was a quick study. Though she still couldn’t get over the purple House of El crest on her lover’s chest. Despite how grim things were it gave her hope and in the same regard Lena would never pass up a chance to tease her either to lighten the mood.

“You’re staring at my chest again... my eyes are up here you know,” Lena teased her and deactivated her helmet with a loud whirring sound. Shaking free her sweaty ponytail, Lena looked across the glistening and gleaming skyline of Metropolis with a sense of long-forgotten longing on her pale face.

“I’ve made my decision,” she stated flatly and that earned her a swat on the back of the head for being a perverted little hero.

“Hear or see anything?” the green-eyed genius asked, and she could tell that Lena was again looking at something only she could see through her augmented reality contacts as the woman’s eyes glowed green.

“So far nothing, but Clark should be here soon and then we can decide on a course of action,” she replied while at the same time doing a broad spectrum scan of Metropolis with her ears straining to pick up any trace of Lori’s heartbeat.

“I haven’t been back here in years you know. I left shortly after Lex and Superman fought... but I guess that never happened now thanks to the Crisis, right?” Lena asked and narrowed her eyes on the old LexCorp building in the distance.

“I didn’t come to Metropolis often either. Mostly stayed in Midvale, but I would have liked to meet you back then,” she said softly as they sat down on the wide ring around the massive golden globe that marked the Daily Planet building in the Metropolis skyline.

“You’d have hated me! I was a party girl. You know, in between fencing practice and trying to stay awake in my classes because they were so boring,” Lena laughed, and she could picture a teenage Lena clearly. Proud, willful, sarcastic, mischievous and for some reason in lots of leather.

“I’d have been terrified of you, but also kinda into you, I think,” she admitted and blushed when Lena glanced over at her with a smirk.

“Oh, I’d have been all over your nerdy butt Danvers,” the raven-haired beauty drawled, and she kicked her feet over the edge of the disk they sat on.

“I wasn’t that nerdy!” she protested and that earned her a disbelieving raised eyebrow from her wife to be.

“Alright, I was a little bit nerdy, but I’d have given you a chance if you were nice to me,” she admitted under Lena’s incredulous gaze.

“Would you have offered to help me with my homework?” Lena teased her and she gulped at the mental images that statement conjured up in her mind. Somehow she knew that having Lena around when she was a teenager would have led her down some very different paths and it made for a nice daydream at least.

Before they could dive deeper into who would have done what to whom when they were teens a gust of wind signaled her cousin's arrival and they both rose to their feet. Hearing a slight nervous uptick in Lena’s heartbeat she reached out and gave her purple gloved hand a quick reassuring squeeze which in turn earned her a grateful smile. 

“Welcome to Metropolis you two,” Clark greeted them as he rose up from below them with his spitcurl and smile on full display and Truth, Justice and the American way simply radiating off him. 

“Clark,” she said and unable to resist she flew forward and gave her cousin a big hug in the middle of the air.

“It’s good to see you Kara, and you too Lena,” Clark greeted the green-eyed genius over her shoulder as he patted her on the back and then did something that pleasantly surprised her.

Once she let go of her cousin, he flew over to Lena and once again the two of the most important people in her life, sized one another up. This wasn't the first time Lena and Clark met but it was the first time Hope and Superman met sort to speak. Lena’s green eyes were unreadable and Clark’s baby blues were their usual understanding selves. Biting the inside of her cheek she waited for one of them to speak and it was Clark who spoke first.

“Nice suit,” the big blue dorky boy scout said and nodded toward the House of El crest proudly displayed in purple on Lena’s chest. Glowing faintly against the sleek black suit with purple pipping flowing out from it down Lena's arms, sides and legs..

“Thank you, so, are we going to be awkward about this?” Lena asked and stuck out her hand from where she stood on the disk around the golden Daily Planet globe.

“No, we don’t need to be awkward about this,” Clark laughed and took the offered purple gloved hand 

“Good, and for the record, this suit was all Kara’s idea,” the green-eyed genius said but flashed her a smile while shaking hands with Clark. 

“Regardless of whose idea it was. You wear the 'S' well, and congratulations on your engagement too. Kara’s idea as well I assume?” Clark asked and she let out a groan. She wasn’t that impulsive, was she?

“Kara asked, but I said yes, and I’d do it again thousand times over,” Lena laughed in a rare display of emotion in front of someone the green-eyed genius didn’t really know.

“Welcome to the family then sort to speak and be warned I’m going to hug you now,” Clark said with a jovial laugh and with Lena giving a nod of agreement, her wife to be and her cousin hugged in mid-air above the Daily Planet building.

“Okay, okay break it up! Or I’ll start crying in mid-air over here,” she said while choking up a little bit while pushing them apart playfully.

“Have you been able to find anything?” Lena asked Clark, switching from sentimental to serious on a dime and there was that hitch in the green-eyed genius’ voice again which wrenched at her heartstrings.

“No, I’ve been flying all over the city since I got your message and so far, nothing,” he answered sadly, and she could see Lena’s face falling.

“Alright, we need a plan,” she said, and Lena gave her a grateful smile for taking charge of this as she could see that the green-eyed genius was struggling to keep her composure at the lack of good news.

“Clark, can you expand your search? Do a hundred-mile radius sweep of the city since the location we managed to get wasn’t too accurate. So, let’s start out by doing a wide sweep,” she ordered her cousin who gave a nod.

“Lena, you find a cell-tower to plug into it. See if you and Hope can spot anything strange in the com-traffic and maybe find the source of that radiation spike Barry detected,” she then ordered Lena who with an unreadable look gave her a nod too.

“I’m going to go up there to do a block by block X-ray scan of the city to see if there is anything underground we might have missed,” she finished and pointed up to the sky before looking between Clark and Lena as they looked at her almost if they were surprised that she’d taken charge. 

“Yes, Clark?” she asked her cousin when he raised his hand like a schoolboy asking permission to speak in class.

“Who is Hope? I thought Lena was Hope?” he asked, and the A.I. in Lena’s head answered for them.

“I am Hope, an evolving artificial intelligence network that resides within the nanites and related implants in Miss Luthor's body. It is nice to meet you, Superman,” Hope introduced herself with the sound coming from a speaker she had built into Lena’s new suit.

“It’s… it’s nice to meet you too,” Clark greeted the A.I. looking a bit dumbfounded but Superman was always polite.

“I guess you could say that together we are Hope,” Lena explained to Clark and allowed her eyes to flash green for a moment. 

“Miss Luthor is correct. We have a symbiotic relationship that is mutually beneficial to us both and I too want to find Miss Lori,” Hope spoke again, and Clark still looked dumbfounded but pushed on like a champ with an understanding smile.

“Now that we all know each, let’s do a sweep and meet back here in let’s say two hours?” she asked and looked between the two people that a year ago she’d never imagined doing anything like this with. 

“Agreed, I’ll call up Lois and see if she’s found anything while I’m at it,” Clark said and with a comforting nod to her and Lena he was off with a gust of wind and blue and red blur marking his passage across the Metropolis skyline

“Are you going to be okay up there?” Lena asked and pointed to the sky while flying in closer.

“It’s only low-Earth orbit. It’s a piece of a cake,” she assured the armored genius with her best cocky grin.

“I know, but the last time you went to space things kinda went to hell on us,” the green-eyed genius reasoned, and she gently took the woman’s face in both hands.

“I’ll be roughly twenty-five to fifty miles above your head in a slowly decaying geostationary orbit at all times, don’t worry,” she whispered and gave the woman she loved more than life itself a gentle kiss on the lips.

“I love it when you talk science to me,” Lena chuckled and looked up at her with glistening green eyes.

“Ask me about quantum computing sometime soon, okay? But now let’s find our girl?” she asked, and Lena gave one of those firm nods before floating away from her slowly.

“Go on, get into space already, up, up and away Supergirl,” Lena urged her and activated her helmet leaving her staring at a purple visor instead of her lover's beautiful pale face once again.

“Yes ma’am,” she saluted the former CEO and putting her fist above her head she blasted into space at just below the speed of sound. They were close, she could feel it, they’d find Lori, bring the wicked to justice and then go home and be a family.

* * *

Plugging into a nearby cell-tower across the way from the Daily Planet building Lena shook her head because she was going to marry a puppy that was for sure. A puppy that knew about quantum computing and could take charge when need be. That second revelation had given her shivers. Mistress Zor-El did indeed make her want to kneel before Zor-El. Rao, she wanted to marry that blonde and nail her down as firmly her own.

“Was it true what you said Miss Luthor, are we Hope?” the A.I. asked in her head when she was working on an open access-panel roughly three hundred feet above the ground thanks to the Legion flight-tech that Kara had built into her new suit.

“Yes, we are. Does that bother you?” she asked the A.I. that had now shared her head for a while.

“I am not averse to that designation for our union. Are we going to find Miss Lori today?” Hope asked and she gave a faint smile as she hacked into Metropolis’s cell-phone network and various agencies around the city in search of clues

“If Rao allows then yes,” she replied and started sifting through the visual representation of the data that appeared before her eyes.

“Rao is a Kryptonian deity, symbolizing sunlight. Are we religious now?” the A.I. asked and she chuckled. She’d never considered herself the religious type but maybe it was a trait she’d picked up from Kara.

“We will need more data on the subject, but for now calling on a higher-power seems appropriate,” she explained to the A.I. and found the background radiation from the spike Barry had reported.

“Perhaps. Miss Luthor, once we find Miss Lori will I be allowed to be a part of the family?” the A.I. asked sounding almost unsure of itself and again she marveled at how adaptive that simple piece of code she’d written had become.

“Would you like to be?” she asked and even though the Hope A.I. wasn’t fully sentient it was close to it and all sentient beings should have a choice.

“I am fond of Mistress Zor-El and Miss Lori as you know and would greatly... enjoy being part of that unit,” Hope replied, and she smiled at that reply. Of course, Kara and Lori would be lovable enough to make an artificial intelligence care for them.

“Then it’s settled. You will be a part of the family Hope,” she said and tapped away on a keyboard only she could see. 

Click by click she homed in on the source of the radiation burst. It was faint, barely detectable two days later, but it was there. Tachyon and gamma radiation, it wasn’t easy to hide those traces but someone had come close.

“This isn’t right... this frequency, this code,” she muttered when she noticed something familiar buried beneath all the static and signal decay.

“What is it, Miss Luthor?” Hope asked and she chewed on her bottom lip under the helmet as she dug down into the code she’d found.

“An impossibility, that’s what it is,” she replied and messaged Kara up in orbit to move her scans over to the location she was now pinpointing.

“Kara, come in, please. Can you shift over roughly five miles to your left and tell me what you see?” she asked through the dedicated communications channel that they shared.

“Moving now… and that’s strange…” Kara replied and there was a drawn-out silence that she didn’t like one bit.

“What is it?” she asked and closed the access-panel as she got ready to fly over to the spot she’d found.

“It’s all distorted, like when I glance at that part of the city it looks normal, but when I look really close it gets all blurry,” Kara tried to explain from orbit and that confirmed her theory for her at least.

“I’m going to go scout it out, get down here and join me alright?” she asked and took off towards the more run-down parts on the outskirts of the city.

“On my way, don’t go in there without me you hear? I don’t like the look of what I’m seeing up here,” Kara replied and sounded worried.

“Taking a peek only and I'll message Superman telling he should stay back in case this is a trap and we need rescuing,” she assured the blonde hero and pushed herself off towards the skyline that had once been so familiar to her not so long ago. But Metropolis wasn’t home anymore. National City was, that’s where she had her life, with Kara and hopefully soon with Lori.

* * *

The air in front of her shimmered and shifted. How had nobody noticed this before, she wondered as she touched her fingers to the shimmering air, and it rippled at her touch. Granted it was only a single alleyway in an out of the way part of the city which had been abandoned for years since Superman’s battle against some unnamed foe. But still, this didn’t feel right. Superman hadn’t fought an unnamed foe here, she knew that, but her memories were inconsistent and jumbled. 

“What is it?” Kara asked right away after landing next to her after descending from low-Earth orbit with the accumulated frost melting into dew-like droplets of water on her blue and red armor and cape.

“I’m not sure, but it covers only this alleyway and like you said unless you really look at it you don’t notice it. According to Hope, this part of the city was abandoned after Superman fought someone here,” she answered and ran her fingers over the shimmering curtain again that seemed to hang in front of them blocking the alley.

“Should you be touching the mysterious shimmering forcefield?” the blonde hero asked and peered her eyes through the shimmering haze in front of them.

“Maybe not, but it all comes together here, the radiation spikes Barry detected, Kate’s data on the weapons shipments, Lex’s cryptic coordinates, and Black Lightning’s info,” she reasoned and pulled her hand back from the shimmering air in front of them.

“I can’t see through it, it’s like it’s actively blocking my X-ray and telescopic vision,” Kara grumbled and put her hand against the shimmering curtain of air.

“Hold on… I remember this place…” she whispered when she gazed through the shimmering curtain again and she could feel long-buried memories fighting their way to the surface of her mind.

“You do?” Kara asked and pulled her hand back from the shimmering veil while studying it intently.

“From before the Crisis… this… this is the place where Lex turned the sky red to try and kill your cousin. This is where… this is where it all fell to piece both for him and for me,” she gasped as the old memories came flooding back bright as day.

She’d been there that day, watching from a distance, barely out of her teens, when Lex and Superman had fought for the last time. The Man of Steel had been defiant but bloodied and her brother smugly triumphant at having finally bested his arch-nemesis. But Lex had fucked up, underestimated the strength of the scion of Krypton and she pulled herself back to the present before she could remember the sight of Lex crawling at the feet of Superman in a broken Lexosuit while spouting venom and hate.

Then a burst of static appeared in front of her vision again and she saw Lori. The little girl was banging her fist against a glass wall and shouting though she couldn’t hear the words. Tightening her gloves into fists she tried to push through the static until Kara’s voice brought her back to reality.

“Lena... Babe, are you alright?” Kara asked, her voice rich with concern and with a hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry, some old memories that’s all. But Lori is in there I’m sure of it,” she said and pulled her sword from the sheath on her back.

“Then let’s go get her,” the blonde hero stated firmly and together they stepped through the shimmering veil.

On the other side of the shimmering veil, it was dark as night, even though it had been daytime when they stepped through the barrier. They were in the ruins of a city where the sky above their heads was red and there was no sunlight. It looked like they’d stepped into hell itself.

“What is this place?” she asked out loud as she felt something crunch under her feet and looking down, she could see it was bones. Poking at them with her sword she could see that they were human bones. This entire place was a bonefield.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Kara muttered and looked around hovering above the bone littered ground in disgust. No sign of life, no sign of anything. Only crumbled buildings and that rolling angry red sky. 

“It’s bigger on the inside, tesseract technology like the Legion ship? Or a portal to a pocket dimension?” she asked, and on her head-up display, she could see there were indeed no life-signs and no radio or cell phone signals. It was like death itself had ridden through this place. 

“Probably, whoever did this... the power needed… hold on! I see something in the distance,” Kara said while speaking in half-sentences and pointed towards the horizon at a tiny spec. 

“Let’s go, the sooner we get Lori out of here the better, then we can call your friends and figure out how to shut this thing down,” she declared and sword in hand they flew towards the spot in the distance. 

The building grew larger and larger in front of them as they approached it. It was a massive citadel of glistening metal and lit up with green lights. It rose like a monolith up from the wasteland around it while above it swirled those ominous red clouds and she heard the humming power of it from a mile away.

“Fuck,” she grunted and felt a stabbing pain in her head, but it passed though it did cause her to lose altitude for a moment.

“Are you alright?” Kara asked flying up next to her to help steady her flightpath with a worried look on her face. 

“Got this… weird pain in my head, like the day….” she tried to speak but then she recognized what had felt so familiar from a distance as they approached the citadel.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Kara asked, now sounding beside herself with worry as they landed in front of the towering construct.

“This… is all my tech, my code is flowing through this thing,” she whispered and scanned the building in front of them using Hope’s sensors.

“What do you mean? Somebody stole it?” the blonde hero asked as they came to a sealed entrance, but Kara pried the doors apart with her fingers before forcing them open with a loud grunt and the sound of breaking metal.

“I don’t know, but the design of this isn’t like anything I’d ever come up with,” she admitted and ran her hand along the wall as they entered a dimly green-lit corridor.

“I think we should call for back-up, just in case,” Kara suggested, and she sent out the signal through her suit’s communication systems to Kara's Superfriends. Detecting no life-signs this place felt deserted at least of human life. 

“This place it’s so cold, so robotic, I’d never build anything like this,” she observed, and the place made her shiver. It felt wrong and it chilled her to her core.

After going down an endless corridor with only faint green lights guiding their way, they entered a high vaulted room. It was dark and empty safe for a single beam of light in the middle of it. In the center of the beam was a glass cell and inside it, laying sleeping on a cot was Lori. Her Lori!

“Lori!” she called out and rushed towards the box while deactivating her helmet as she ran. They’d found her! They’d found the precious little girl and she ran so fast that Kara failed to keep up. 

“Mommy! Supergirl!” the child called out and jumped out of the cot as she came to a sliding halt in front of the glass wall separating them. 

Looking at Lori pressing her hands against the glass and she felt herself crying at the sight of the child as she put her own hands up against the glass. With their hand pressing together through the glass she let out a relieved laugh. 

“I’m here darling, I’m here, let’s get you out of here okay?” she called through the glass and started looking around for a way to open the glass cell that held the child while Lori nodded her blonde head eagerly. Then that stabbing pain in her head was back, stronger than before. 

“I know you’d… mommy are you alright?” Lori asked with her blue eyes going wide as saucers when she let out a painful scream.

“Lena!” Kara shouted from a few feet behind her and the entire room lit up with bright green light as the blonde hero became trapped behind a shimmering green forcefield that shot up between them. 

“Little Lena Luthor,” a cold voice chuckled from the shadows and she tried to pull herself up to her feet, but it was no use.

“I bet you’re wondering why you can’t think straight, right?” the voice asked mockingly, and she heard the clicking of heels against the polished metal floor.

"Hope... what's going on..." she managed to ask and she could see Lori banging on the glass wall.

"I'm sorry Miss Luthor... I would have enjoyed... being... family," Hope's voice came out as distorted and then died out completely. 

“And maybe you’re also wondering why that A.I. in your head is shutting down?” the voice asked again as it drew nearer, and she could faintly hear Kara gasp in shock and Lori cry in fear.

“Who are you?” she asked through gritted teeth and managed to pull herself up to one knee while using her sword as a crutch. Placing herself between the approaching owner of the voice and the box that held Lori prisoner.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet, Little Lena Luthor?” the voice asked, and she could see a figure emerge from the shadows. It couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible! Not any longer and Kara knew it too.

“No! It’s not possible… Oliver closed the ways between worlds!” Kara shouted and banged her fists against the green force-field she was trapped behind.

“I know what the Spectre did, but ask yourself this, what is the impossible but mere hindrance to a Luthor?” the voice asked, and its owner stepped fully out of the shadows as another sharp pain shot through her head and body.

A heeled foot kicked her sword away, sending it clattering across the polished metal floor before it came to a stop next to the forcefield Kara was trapped behind.

“What is the death of an entire universe to Lena Luthor?” a woman wearing her face asked while leaning down and grabbing her face to make sure their matching green eyes met.

Before her stood a dark and twisted mirror of herself with a severe haircut, an angry set face, snarling lips, compassionless green eyes and a hunk of pulsating kryptonite in the middle of her chest. All wrapped up in an authoritarian black dress and heels. 

It all came together. How all her systems had been disabled so easily because who knew them better than herself. The pain in her head because of the proximity to her doppelgänger’s brain’s beta waves. The tech and the chaos. It had all been this doppelgänger of hers doing. A Lena Luthor that had fallen between the cracks when reality had been rearranged and had come to wreak havoc on her world. This woman was her inner darkness made manifest.

“Now you get it. You know, when I awoke in this reality, I looked for you. Thinking we could work together. But instead, I found you playing the hero while making doe-eyes at that alien bitch!” her doppelgänger spat in her face and clenching her fist towards Kara, she shot a beam of kryptonite from it at the blonde which made Kara scream and fall to her knees. 

“Let go of her!” Kara roared despite the pain and pounded her fists against the green force-field baring her way with her eyes glowing a bright purple as she unleased waves of heat-vision. Absorbing the kryptonite radiation and not even flinching in her rage.

“Oh, I’m done with you, thank you for coming, Kara Zor-El,” the doppelgänger laughed and with a wave of her hand, Kara was simply gone in a shower of green sparks. 

“But you, my Little Lena Luthor, we’re just getting started!” the doppelgänger said to her as she tried to raise her hand to blast that smug smirk of her face with a well-placed force blast. The emitter charged up while glowing purple but then too it fizzled and died out.

“Oh no, no, can’t have you doing that, not when we’ve got so much to talk about!” the doppelgänger laughed and started dragging her away from the glass cage that held Lori with her powerless to fight back.

“Let her go!” Lori shouted, cried, and banged her small fists against the glass making it shake. Again, she found herself reaching out for Lori but this time it was her being dragged away. Dragged away into the depths of her doppelgänger's citadel with Kara having been sent to who knows where if she was even alive at all!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go, the villain revealed and yes I took inspiration from the 100th Episode for this one because I couldn't resist having my heroic Lena face her evil counterpart. Plus the title of the fic is A Dimensional Shift in Perspective so there was bound to be more dimensional stuff eventually!


	15. Power Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara wakes up in a strange but familiar place and comes face with a haunting vision of things that might have been.
> 
> Meanwhile, Lena suffers at the hands of her doppelgänger and it will require Kara to get help from their friends in time and a new ally to rescue her.
> 
> Lori decides she wants out of her glass box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, I use the word "doppelgänger" 52 times in this chapter and the word "Batarang" turns up 7 times!
> 
> I originally said that this chapter would be called Red Sun's Rage, but I've used that title twice before I found out so it became Power G  
> irl which will be explained.
> 
> Also this chapter is a beast and I couldn't stop editing it!

It was dark, but there was something oddly familiar about this darkness though. Maybe, Kara thought, that she should sleep a bit longer and then get up and get Lena some breakfast bagels from the deli down the street or fly and get some Irish scones from across the Atlantic Ocean. Then they could work out together and then do some naughtier workouts. Go visit Lori and see if anyone needed saving as Supergirl and Hope, National City's very own Super-duo! But before she could keep dreaming about that a loud voice boomed in her head.

“Wake up!”

“Lena?”

“You need to wake up!”

“Lori?” 

“WAKE UP!”

Kara woke up with a startled gasp and with her heat-vision flaring to life as she looked around for the monster with Lena’s face that had taken her lover away from her and now held both Lena and Lori captive. But she was all alone. All alone in a small and dimly lit room but she didn’t have time for those old fears right now. Pushing herself up from the floor she waited for her eyes to adjust the dim light and allowed herself to hear instead of seeing.

There was no trace of Lena or Lori’s heartbeats, so she was either too far away or somewhere else entirely. Slowly her vision adjusted to the dim light and she could see that she was in the ruins of an apartment. More accurately she was in what had once been a closet and stepping out of it she could some of the walls were blown out and she could make out the still red sky outside through the cracks. At least she hadn’t been teleported too far away or so she hoped. Fixing her cape, adjusting the golden Kryptonian circlet Lena had made for her and dusting off her red and blue Supergirl armor she set about exploring her surroundings.

Carefully stepping through a pile of rubble into what had once been someone's living room she tripped over something laying on the dust-covered floor. Bending down to pick it up, she could see that it was a picture of herself and Lena in a cracked frame. Thought it was not quite her or the Lena she knew though because there were small differences that her trained eye spotted. She's spent years staring longingly at Lena and knew her own face from the mirror each morning. This Lena was paler with shorter hair and the girl in the picture with her face had longer dirty-blonde hair and wore big rounded glasses.

“Mine!” a high-pitched voice called out as a gnarled hand shot out from behind the turned over remains of a couch and snatched the picture from her hands.

“What?” she gasped in surprise when she recognized the voice. It was a voice she heard every day when she talked to herself in fact. Not that she did that often, but she was prone to moments of babbling to herself at times and she knew it. 

“Mine, you can’t have it!” the owner of the voice shouted and she looked behind the ruined couch and saw to her shock an emancipated vision of herself wearing a torn and tattered blue Supergirl-suit with a pair of worn burgundy boots.

“Rao,” she gasped and stared at what could be best described as a husk. It was herself, but with sunken blue eyes, wild and unkempt dirty-blonde hair and the poor thing looked utterly broken and half-feral. But it was the Kara from the picture.

“No Rao here. Only Lena here,” the half-feral girl who had once upon a time been Kara Zor-El muttered and hugged the broken picture frame to her chest.

Kneeling down she held out her hand to the scared girl in a gesture of friendship. What had Lena’s doppelgänger done to this Kara and how was this even possible. Oliver had closed the pathways between the worlds unless this was what the humans' called hell.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said softly in a friendly tone of voice and the near-feral girl that shared her face gave her a suspicious look but kept her head tucked against her shoulder.

“You’re… me?” the half-feral blonde finally asked and raised her head up more. Now that she could see the girl better, she noticed that there was a nasty scar running down her left cheek, and it looked like the poor thing had been through hell.

“Yes, I’m Kara Zor-El from Earth-Prime…. do you know about Earth-Prime or Earth-1?” she asked, and the wild-haired and half-feral blonde shook her head looking sad and confused.

"What's your name?" she asked next as she sat down in front of this poor creature and kept her hands out with her palms facing upward in a gesture of peace. 

“Kara… Kara Zor-L, I think? Or was it Kara Danvers or Kent…” the half-feral girl replied almost like she didn’t remember her own name.

“It’s alright, can you tell me what happened here? Where are we?” she asked, and the feral-looking blonde’s eyes went wide with unimaginable fear. 

“No! Bad things!” the feral blonde shouted and curled up in a ball hugging the broken picture frame tighter to her chest while waving her away pitifully.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and got to her feet to look around some more as she left the broken girl to her grief and sadness.

This apartment had felt very familiar in her sleep because she realized it was the ruins of her old apartment from before she’d moved in with Lena. Not that much remained of it now. A small sleeping area had been set up where the remaining walls still offered some shelter and strewn around a makeshift cot were a few mementos she recognized on closer inspection.

The torn front of J’onn’s suit, a partly-broken green bow of Oliver’s, a dented winged silver helmet she assumed used to be Barry’s in this reality, Nia’s scratched-up silver mask, Alex’s cracked motorcycle helmet, Clark’s broken glasses, Kate’s Batarang which seemed to hold a place of importance and various other trinkets and toys. It was like her half-feral twin was trying to hold onto what memories of the past she could. All alone on a fragment of a dead world. No wonder the poor thing was in such a broken state.

“I like to look at them... and remember,” the half-feral blonde said from behind her and it made her jump as the husk of a woman scampered hunched over towards her pile of mementos and trinkets.

“This was Barry’s, he was my friend and very fast! But not fast enough,” the feral blonde explained showing her the silver helmet and then putting it on her head. 

“Oliver was brave… but in the end... t didn’t matter,” this broken and feral version of herself then explained while pulling the bow’s string before letting loose an imaginary arrow and she had to wipe a tear from her cheek.

“Kate, brave too, good friend, last one to go… held me close when I was scared at night… loved her very much...“ the girl said while holding up the Batarang but unable to finish that sentence she grabbed the motorcycle helmet instead.

“Alex… she hurt Alex so much!” the girl whispered and then cried when she showed her the cracked helmet. Unable to stop herself, she knelt down again and hugged this poor creature.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” she whispered and rocked the thin and fragile girl in her arms while she cried.

“Tried to stop her, told Lena I loved her, but nothing worked,” the half-feral blonde whimpered, pulling away from the hug and she felt the anger in her rising. This version of Lena was a monster in every sense of the word it would seem.

“What happened, can you tell me? It’s very important that I know because she took my Lena you see,” she asked again while gently pushing the poor girl, and those sunken blue eyes met hers with such depth of sadness in them that she had to look away.

“Your Lena... nice? Good?" the half-feral girl asked with wide blue eyes and she nodded with a wistful smile on her lips. Her Lena was the nicest and indeed good. 

"My Lena… my Lena wanted to make it all better, but... you can’t make it all better… can you?” the sad-looking feral blonde tried to answer but stumbled over words.

“No, you can’t make it all better,” she replied, and it was the hard truth she’d learned. No matter how strong or smart you are, you can’t fix everything, and the half-feral blonde nodded her head.

“When things not get better… It made her mad and then boom! Lena big villain,” the feral blonde exclaimed mimicking a big explosion with her hands.

“Did you fight her?” she asked and almost didn’t want to hear the answer as the poor near-feral girl put down the cracked helmet and put up her scarred hands in two fists while bobbing from side to side like a boxer.

“Many times… so many times… but she kept getting stronger… and I wasn’t strong enough,” the feral Kara whimpered and put her fingers to her lips. 

“She’ll kiss me here and say it’s over now but it’s never over!” the feral blonde cried while pulling at her mane of wild and blonde hair and she wasn’t sure if the poor thing was talking about the past or the present anymore.

“Have you tried to escape? To get away from here? There is a portal that I came through,” she asked and looked around again. She needed to get out of this pocket dimension that had somehow been grafted onto her reality like a cancerous growth. Needed to get out and get her friends to come help.

“No, I tried once, but I’m not strong anymore, can't make fire with my eyes anymore and I don't hear so good either,” the half-feral Kara conceded sadly and shook her messy mane of blonde hair. 

Standing up, she squared her shoulders and offered the feral blonde her hand. They would have a better chance of getting out of here together to meet up with her friends and a depowered, feral and growling Supergirl was still a Supergirl after all.

“Come with me?” she asked, and the near-feral blonde looked at her hand for a moment but shook her head again after almost reaching out to take it.

“Can’t! Lena will find me… hurt me again when I tell her that I love her and forgive her,” the feral blonde muttered and scampered back to her safe place surrounded by the memories of her dead friends and family.

“You still love her?” she asked unable to believe that after all, she’d now seen, and the feral blonde nodded her head.

“Lena and me, soulmates, or maybe Kate and I were soulmates too, but I won’t give up, still good in her, but you go now,” the feral blonde muttered while waving her away.

“I’ll come back for you,” she promised this husk of herself that she felt deep pity and sadness for. Even with her world in ruins, this poor creature still believed that there was good in Lena. 

“No, you won’t, you only… a dream. I have those sometimes, they're nice,” the feral blonde said, now ignoring her and playing with Clark’s cracked glasses by putting them on and taking them off again. 

Giving this broken version of herself one final look she silently rose into the red sky over the ruins of what she now realized had been National City and it was time to fix this problem with either science or her fists. Right now, she was leaning towards the flying fists of fury option. 

“The portal,” she said to herself and took off toward where they’d entered this place. Lena’s doppelgänger had a plan and that meant that this place would be tethered to Earth-Prime for as long as it would take to complete said plan. 

Landing by where they’d entered this hellscape she could see her friends on the other side of the shimmering veil Lena and her had passed through to get here. Kate with her Bat-suit and red wig on, Barry in his scarlet suit along with Alex in black tactical gear. J’onn in his dark green armor and Nia in blue and silver with Clark trying to punch his way through from the other side. With not much success from the looks of it and only bloodied knuckles to show for his efforts. 

“Clever, why did she have to be clever?” she muttered and waved at Clark who stopped himself mid-punch.

Then they all started talking at once but the sound much like her X-Ray vision didn’t seem to pass through the barrier between her Earth and whatever hell this was. Instead, she started using sign-language with Clark who took a few seconds to figure out what she was doing.

“Lena captured. Evil Lena responsible,” she signed with her hands and fingers, and she could see the collective ‘whats’ being shouted on the other side.

“Don’t ask! Can you get through somehow?” she signed, and her hands moved gracefully in the air in front of her as she remembered the lessons she'd taken long ago.

Clark shook his head holding up his bloodied knuckles and Kate stepped up to the shimmering veil in her full Batwoman regalia and started signing with a frustrated expression on her face. The short and sweet of it was that something weird was going on back on Earth. Small earthquakes, red lights in the sky and another spike in criminal activity and all centered on Metropolis this time. 

“Are they alright?” Kate signed through the barrier and she shook her head which made Nia and Alex look worried. Putting her hand against the now solid shimmering veil she tried to push through, but it wouldn’t budge. 

Barry said something to Kate who signed that they would figure it out but they would need some time. Time to go get Barry's science team and Black Lightning here to get started. That would take to long she realized right away and that left her only one unpleasant option.

Looking back over at the citadel in the distance she knew she couldn’t do this alone and that Lena's time was limited. Thus, she would need help and that meant she needed her friends on the other side of the barrier and she needed them now.

Turning back to them she smiled at them sadly and waved for them to take a step back. It was time to go back to the dark place deep inside of herself. The place where she kept all her rage, her anger, and her hate. The place where Kara Zor-El of Krypton lived. Bit by bit she started remembering her pain and for the first time, most of her friends and family saw her as she could be if she simply let go. One by one she dragged up those painful memories and clenched her fists. 

Krypton. Gone!

Argo City. Gone!

Aunt Astra. Gone!

Mom. Gone!

Dad. Gone!

Lori. Scared and alone!

Lena. Hurt!

“RAO!” she roared, and she could see her friends and loved ones on the other side of the barrier. Some of them recoiling in horror and shock at the sight of her full power unleashed. Others like Alex and J'onn looking at her with great sadness at knowing what she was doing for Lena and Lori.

In the shimmering veil she caught sight of her reflection. She saw her eyes glowing bright red like a demon’s while her teeth were bared in a dreadful snarl and the muscles in her arms and neck bulged as she raised both fists above her head before bringing them crashing down against the barrier again and again.

Krypton. Gone!

BOOM!

Argo City. Gone!

BOOM!

Aunt Astra. Gone!

BOOM!

Mom and dad! Gone!

BOOM!!

Lori!

BOOM!?!

Lena!

BOOM!?!?!

Again, and again she hurled her fists against the barrier with the shockwaves from each explosion that resulted radiating out around her and the blastwaves blew back the dust and bones that littered the ground of this hell of a Lena Luthor’s making. 

“LENA!” she roared and brought her fists down one last time on the unyielding barrier until it cracked a tiny bit under the full force of her rage-fueled strength.

Pulling back, she gasped for air, beads of sweat were running down her nose and dripping onto the bone littered ground. Pushing her sweat-wet hair out of her face she looked up and saw the crack slowly spreading through the barrier. Then with a shaking hand, she reached out, flicked her finger against the crack and the barrier exploded into a million pieces.

“Is it safe?” a small voice asked from behind her and turning around she could see it was the near-feral version of herself. Hugging herself in a torn blue Supergirl-suit while looking around at the ruins around them.

The sunken-eyed version of herself still wore a tattered blue Supergirl bodysuit that had almost faded to grey, worn dark red boots, and she had the remains of a red cape hanging from only one shoulder. But the crest of the House of El was proudly displayed in tarnished gold on her chest and she didn’t look as scared as before. Somehow the girl had also sheared her clumped and wild blonde hair into a short bob-cut before coming but it still stuck out several directions at once. 

“You came?” she asked her twin as her friends rushed through the now open portal and the broken blonde shrunk back from the sight of them.

“Heard the booms… thought it was safe to escape or that I could help... I want to help you find your Lena,” the half-feral version of herself muttered and then gasped when she saw her friends emerge fully through the shimmering veil. 

“Barry… Clark… Alex… my Kate?” the shivering blonde asked and looked between her friends with her blue sunken eyes going wide.

“I thought this sort of thing couldn’t happen anymore?” Kate asked right away at the sight of the feral Supergirl while sounding confused but also pissed off and stared at the half-feral girl who looked away like a scared animal.

“Well technically…” Barry said, holding up a finger but couldn’t get to finish what he was saying as the ground around them started rumbling.

“No, not again! Not again!” the half-feral version of herself started shouting and put her hands over her ears to block out the sounds.

“What’s happening?” she demanded of the terrifying girl who had once been Supergirl while grabbing her by the arms and shaking her back to her senses.

“It’s Lena’s machines! They’ve come back! Don’t let them take me!” the half-feral blonde cried out in fright, and glistening metal tentacles burst out of the ground all around them. 

“Battle formation!” J’onn shouted and she pushed the terrified girl behind herself as they created a defensive circle around the half-feral Supergirl. Rule number one, protect the weak and the helpless. 

Something hit her on the shoulder, she wasn’t sure it was a green laser blast or one of the tentacles moving at incredible speed, but it hurt. It hurt a lot! Looking around she could see her friends struggling while putting up a valiant fight. 

Barry was trying to kick one of the tentacles of his leg at superspeed. Alex was shooting at anything and everything that came close with both her weapons in front of her while Nia shielded her sister with a glowing blue nimbus of oneiric energy. Clark was fighting off the brunt of the assault, twisting and bending the metal of the attacking machines with his hands as J’onn phased in and out of them to short-out their internals

Behind her, Kate stood over the half-feral Supergirl that was crazed with fear now. The Caped Crusader, keeping the terrified blonde safe from the attack while slicing away with two nasty-looking over-sized Batarangs at everything that got close to the huddled blonde. 

“We don’t have time for this,” she growled and rose into the air. Lena was in danger and Lori was all alone and trapped in a glass cell and this was only a distraction.

X-ray scanning the ground she could see that all the tentacles were coming from one central mass deep underground and flying high up into the red sky she dove into the ground like a drill. Burrowing her way through the dirt and rock through brute force until she found the heart of the machine. A glowing green abomination of this Lena’s genius and it made her sick to behold it. Slamming into the central mass with both fists in front of her she dug her fingers into the metal and hauled it out of the ground. 

The screeching half-metal and half-organic abomination howled at her and lashed out with even more tentacles and blasts of green lasers that bounced off her skin and suit with sparks flying as metal met skin like steel and she gritted her teeth. Pushing herself up out of the ground with an explosion of dirt and rocks all around forced the writhing mass of metallic tentacles assaulting her friends to withdrew and she ascended into the swirling and angry red sky. 

“If you want me! Come and get me yourself bitch!” she roared at the thing and its creator and swung the octopus-like horror around a few times before hurling it high into the red sky. Then with a powerful and spiteful blast of heat-vision, she shattered it into a million pieces that rained down on the ruins below.

“Now I know we’re in trouble! Kara used a dirty word,” Kate quipped even despite their dire situation while helping the feral and now embarrassed and shy Supergirl to her feet. 

“What was that?” Barry asked while rubbing his ankle where the metallic tentacle had wrapped itself around his leg.

“Lena’s machines… she made them… to kill you all... she killed you all,” the half-feral and still shaking Supergirl muttered while hiding behind Kate again. Once again, her broken mind flashing between the past and the present. 

“Kate, Nia, Alex, guard the entrance and keep… well keep me safe,” she ordered her friends who sadly couldn't move at speed or fly and then turned to face J’onn, Barry and Clark.

“Lena is being held captive in a citadel fifty miles to our north. Any ideas?” she explained and pointed to the distance.

“A four-pronged attack?” Clark asked and looked into the distance with his eyes peered.

“We should wait for back-up from Sara,” J’onn argued and she gave him a look of utter desperation but his face was grim and firmly set. That plan was needless to say a no go in her mind. 

“Yeah, where are Sara and the Legends? We messaged them a dozen times before we came,” Barry cut in and pulled down his cowl revealing a sweaty mob of hair and concerned brown eyes.

“We don’t have time to argue tactics, she’s got Lena and Lori and…” she started pleading with them and then a burst of static erupted from every available suit that had a built-in form of communications.

“Mistress Zor-El, are you there?” it was Hope’s heavily distorted voice and the A.I. sounded afraid.

“Hope, where are you, where is Lena?” she shouted and tapped a few buttons on the gauntlet of her armor to reduce the volume.

“I am in a dark place... I am alone and I am scared, Mistress Zor-El... and I am worried that Miss Luthor is...” the A.I. spoke in broken sentences before another burst of static cut the transmission short

“Lena is what, Hope? Lena is what!? Hope!” she shouted and then her half-feral self spoke up again still hiding behind Kate’s cape.

“She’s harvesting your Lena for usable traits and tech. It’s what she does, she takes whatever makes a person special and combines it with herself,” the half-feral blonde Supergirl explained with her voice stronger than it had been before.

“It’s what she did to our world to escape the anti-matter wave and now it’s only the two of us left,” her feral twin went on as they all stared at her in disbelief.

“Can you take me to her?” she asked the half-feral blonde because she had a sneaking suspicion that her twin knew a way into the citadel that wouldn’t require brute force.

“There is a hidden way, underground, I used it… a few times long ago before my Lena… before my Lena did the bad things,” the half-feral Supergirl muttered and looked ashamed of herself.

“Then we all go,” Kate declared and started going through her utility belt while the rest of her friends readied themselves for another fight.

“Won’t work, only work for me and her unless you’re super sneaky,” the half-feral girl said and pointed at her with a dirt-caked finger.

“No deal,” Barry stated flatly and crossed his arms over his chest. Right away she knew that her friend was thinking of how they’d lost Oliver and it was sweet that he cared, but now wasn’t the time for sweetness.

“Yeah, we’re not letting you go without us, Lena is my friend!” Nia declared and her fists were crackling with blue oneiric energy. 

“Yep, she’s my friend too,” Alex declared and reloaded her guns with conviction before holstering them at her hips.

“We owe it to Lena to all go,” J’onn stated and squared his shoulders as he assumed his Martian visage.

“Yes, Lena is one of us now,” Clark pleaded with her and put his hand on the House of El crest on his chest. 

“Sorry Sunshines, you’re stuck with us, the both of you,” Kate declared while grinning at them both and to her surprise, her twin giggled.

“You’re like my Kate was, she was so brave and funny too,” the half-feral Supergirl in her blue and torn suit declared while giving Kate a strange look.

Before she could formulate a better plan the entire pocket dimension they were in started shaking and rumbling. This wasn’t another attack, because above them they could see the spires of Metropolis poking through the red clouds as thunder rumble and flashes of lightning lit up the angry red sky.

“No, no, no, she wouldn’t do that!” she shouted while realizing right away what was going on and again grabbed her twin by the arms.

“Please tell me she’s not doing that!” she shouted at the skinny blonde girl who couldn’t look her in the eye. Because they both knew what was going on and then Barry caught on too what they were both thinking.

“Oh, this is bad! This is beyond bad!” he shouted and started darting around at superspeed checking at places where pieces of Metropolis were now poking into the pocket dimensions.

“What’s going on here! I’m a detective, not a rocket scientist!” Kate demanded and looked around warily with her Batarang raised.

“The Lena that made this pocket dimension she’s trying to merge it with our reality…. Using our Lena’s tech or her vibrational frequency… oh no! Move, we got to move now!” she shouted before she could finish that terrible thought and the pocket dimension they were in on top of shaking also started shrinking. 

“Clark you take Alex, J’onn you got Nia, Barry run… you, can you still fly?” she asked the half-feral girl who nodded her head and rose from the bone covered ground almost shyly. 

“Kate you’re with her,” she ordered her friend and the half-feral Supergirl wasted no time scooping the red-wigged hero up in her arms.

“Watch the hands, Sunshine, okay this won't work. What can we call you?” Kate asked when she was being picked up and again the half-feral girl gave a giggle.

“My Kate used to call me Starshine but you can call me Power Girl if it helps, it's what they sometimes called me,” the half-feral hero said and Power Girl would do in a pinch because thinking about herself in the plural sense was a headache she didn’t need right now. Plus Starshine sounded a bit too affectionate but that was a worry for another day about just how close this version of her and her Kate had seemed to be.

“Power Girl it is then, now let's go! Go! We’ve got an hour tops!” she shouted and with the fliers carrying those who couldn’t move at speed or fly they raced towards the citadel. 

She had an inkling of a plan. It would require most of her friends to distract Lena’s doppelgänger’s defenses while she and her twin now going by Power Girl sneaked into the citadel through the hidden tunnels and rescued Lena and Lori. Or at least that’s what she told them on the hurried rush over to the base of the citadel, but she knew she might have to do something unthinkable to truly end this.

* * *

In her glass box, Lori was tired of being scared and alone, so she put her hand against the wall of the glass box she’d been trapped inside and pushed with all the might of both her body and her brain bits. Then the glass cracked and then it exploded all over the floor. Looking at her hand she smiled and ran towards the hallway where the mean lady had taken her mommy. Time to be super-brave like mommy and Supergirl!

* * *

Rao, it is full of stars, Lena thought as she came too again and found herself looking up at the lights above her head. Vaguely aware of her surroundings she did recognize that she was strapped down on a metal slab and she quickly found out that trying to break free was pointless. The new Hope-suit was disabled, the nanites in her blood were dormant and she couldn't hear Hope’s voice in her head anymore. 

“Perfect! You’re awake just in time for the grand finale!” her doppelgänger declared, and she blinked her eyes a few more times to bring the surgical lamp above her head into focus.

The finale, what did she mean by that? A low rumbling in the citadel’s walls answered that question for her and she wished she wasn’t this smart sometimes. The design of the citadel had been so familiar because it was very similar to her own ideas for a dimensional tuning fork! The crazy bitch was going to merge her pocket dimension right into Metropolis!

Trying to speak but she couldn’t move her lips and so she thrashed about on the metal table she was strapped down on in impotent rage. This wasn’t how she’d go out, she wouldn’t allow it! Not strapped down like some helpless animal.

“Settle down now, or this will hurt a lot more, well it’s going to hurt regardless but it will go so much quicker if you just accept it,” her doppelgänger laughed at her outburst.

“But I must say, your technology is amazing! How did you come up with it?” her doppelgänger asked while leaning over her wearing a surgical mask and gloves along with a butcher’s apron over her black dress and the hunk of kryptonite in the middle of her chest.

“I mean! N-th metal nanites in your blood, that delightful evolving sentient artificial intelligence in your head and a Kryptonian battle-armor. But I must ask, a sword, really?” her doppelgänger asked with a raised eyebrow while bringing the sword into view before casually tossing it away.

“Fuck… you…” she spat out through the sedative the bitch had injected into her neck before strapping her down earlier as she started to remember bits and pieces.

“Language! I swear you and that little blonde alien in the glass box downstairs are just the same,” her doppelgänger reprimanded her like an upset school teacher and slapped her across the face. There was tremendous strength behind that blow and like her, this doppelgänger was more than met the eye.

“I can see you trying to think and yes I’m stronger than you, I can even do this!” the doppelgänger laughed an evil laugh and before her eyes, the evil bitch’s hand morphed into a nasty looking blade before becoming a human hand again.

“How?” she croaked and tried to manipulate the bindings that held her wrists, but her fingers wouldn't obey her thoughts.

“Martian DNA, it’s versatile stuff and very useful! Plus there was so much of it just laying around after I killed that pompous alien and his brother,” her doppelgänger giggled and there it was. The Luthor madness that she’d fought her entire life not to succumb to.

“Killed them?” she managed to ask while looking around the lab she was now trapped in. It made a twisted kind of sense that this crazed version of her had killed everyone in a mad gamble to save herself. 

Unable to move her head she could just barely make out that everything in this laboratory of horrors was gleaming metal and smooth surfaces. Sterile, robotic and devoid of humanity. Was this what she could have become if she hadn’t found the courage and gone with Kara to the rooftop of the orphanage that day after Kaznia or if she’d not accepted Kara into her life?

“Oh yes killed them all. You see, I started out with these grand ideas! Mind control and such, but I found out that free will is a resilient thing and no matter what I did people just kept wanting to be free. In the end, it’s so much easier to just… kill them,” her doppelgänger explained as she stuck another needle into her neck without warning and withdrew a vial of greenish-red nanite-infused blood.

“Rao!” she tried not to make a sound, but the needle burned as it pierced her skin and she ended up screaming while thrashing about on the metal slab she was strapped down on like a laboratory experiment to be dissected.

“Is her your god now? My oh, my, how the mighty have fallen Little Lena Luthor. Tell me do you shout that when you let that Kryptonian harlot ravish you in the night?” her doppelgänger asked and the venom in her voice was palpable.

“Kara... loves… me…” she spat out and tried to focus her mind. She needed to think, find a way out of this and rescue Lori, but this bitch with her face was again doing something that disrupted her thoughts.

“My Kara loved me too, in fact, it’s how I defeated her in the end,” her doppelgänger commented and pried her right eye open which sent another jolt of pain through her skull.

“I’d hug her and kiss her and tell her this time it would be different and she believed me right up until I tore the heart out of her beloved sister’s chest and burned that Bat-slut of hers to cinders,” her doppelgänger mused and with a pair of tweezers pulled one of the augmented reality contacts out of her right eye.

“Aaaaahhh!” she could only scream as the contact was forcefully removed from her eye. Because as her doppelgänger pulled the contact out, it pulled at her cornea as the nanoscopic circuitry that connected it to the optic nerves was served.

“I think she’s even around here somewhere still. In the ruins of her beloved city, with her little trinkets and dreams,” her doppelgänger hummed examining the circuitry of the bloody contact.

A beeping sound from a nearby console drew her doppelgänger’s attention giving her a moment's respite and the crazed bitch grinned a mad-looking grin when she glanced over at the console. Trying in vain to turn her head to see what was going to her horror she realized she couldn’t see out of her right eye anymore. Temporary neural damage, it had to be!

“Right on cue, your friends are terribly predictable, but if my calculations are correct and they always are. They won't break through my defenses in time and we can keep having our fun!” her doppelgänger sighed, then giggled madly and dropped the contact in a petri dish.

“Kara… will...” she tried to speak and pulled at her restraints again with her muscles straining for all she was worth.

“No, she won’t, in fact, she’s out here fighting right now! Now, this is going to hurt a lot,” her doppelgänger said while leaning over her again and put her cold and gloved fingers against the side of her face.

Biting down hard she fought and resisted with all her might again, but it was useless because the bitch was invading her mind now. Another power no doubt stolen from this reality’s J’onn. To her horror, she realized that the bitch with her face was stealing her thoughts and ideas one by one and she was powerless to stop it.

To make matters worse it felt like cold needless digging into her brain and she arched herself of the metallic slab and howled in pain. She wouldn't allow this, she was Lena Luthor, she would not be violated like this! But that wasn’t all that happened as the room and the entire citadel started shaking as her doppelgänger forced herself into her mind.

The dimensional merger was accelerating, and it dawned on her that her doppelgänger was intent on bursting into her reality regardless of who got caught up in the merger and resulting blastwave.s

“Such strength of mind, oh what’s this, how adorable!” her doppelgänger laughed and brought up a memory of Kara and her having a picnic with Lori. but then set it all on fire with the blondes screaming for her to help them.

“Get out…” she grunted and somehow managed to find the strength to break the restraint holding her right arm down. 

“Oh, no you don’t! And my oh, oh my, you two are filthy little girls,” her doppelgänger laughed while effortlessly strapping her arm back down and then she dove into an intimate memory of Kara moaning and smiling up at her from their bed with her golden hair spread around her head like a halo. In that memory, Kara was mouthing the words I love you at her.

“Kara!” she shouted in desperation and she started throwing memories at her doppelgänger to drive her back and maintain hope or if only to buy time.

Happy moments, Kara smiling as they danced, Lori laughing as they built a rocket out of Legos, even Alex hugging her, Nia and her fighting together, J’onn telling her that she would have made a good agent and childhood memories with Lex before he went bad. Everything good and pure she had inside of herself she hurled at this vile creature.

Kara would come, she knew that deep down in her heart of hearts and all she had to do was hold on a bit longer. Kara always came for her and digging down deep she found her first memory of Kara while her doppelgänger rummaged around in her mind stealing her soul away. Kara, on that first day they'd met, beautiful and radiant, in that pink outfit with her glasses on her cute nose standing in her office. A shy smile, twinkling blue eyes, that soft blonde hair in a ponytail and Rao, she loved this woman. Rao, that was it and then she prayed, she prayed to Rao.

“Rao… Rao binds us to those we love; He gives us strength when we have none…” she started reciting the prayer that Kara had taught her in the language of Krypton.

“Don’t you dare!” her doppelgänger roared seeming to be taken aback by the sound of Kryptonian tongue and it forced the bitch out of her mind for a moment.

“...and in the darkest places, He guides us…” she went on defiantly and spat in the woman’s face.

“Shut up! It’s too late I already started the dimensional merger!” her doppelgänger shouted and tore the crest of the House of El from her chest in her fury.

“For Rao sees all, feels all, his love eternal,” she grunted when the crest was torn from her chest and then the citadel shook. Then hope arrived in the shape of a towering, blonde and pissed off looking Kryptonian goddess.

“Rao protect us so that We might protect others!” Kara recited the next verse as she emerged through a darkened alcove and then she was sure that she was seeing double through her one good eye when a weathered-looking version of the blonde emerged from behind her Kara wearing the tattered and faded remains of a blue bodysuit with a torn red cape over one shoulder.

“And We shall rise, a Fire in His Hearth, burning and free! Hello Lena, it’s been a long time,” the weary-looking Supergirl said quietly and then snarled before launching herself at her doppelgänger with her hands in front of her like claws and there was a decade of pain on the creature's howl.

“You little whore!” the doppelgänger roared back at the feral blonde Supergirl and turned to face the onslaught with her eyes and the hunk of kryptonite in her chest glowing bright green.

The doppelgänger's body morphed and shifted as she grappled with Kara’s furious twin and then Kate was there undoing the restraints holding her down. Outside the citadel, she could hear loud booms like those of thunder and she smiled as she realized through the pain that not only had Kara come. They’d all come to her rescue. Her friends had come! 

“Kate… what?” she asked with her brain still feeling somewhat scrambled from whatever her doppelgänger had been doing to it.

“No time, your evil clone over there started merging this place with Metropolis, we need you to reverse it while the Supergirl and Powe Girl keep her busy,” Kate spoke fast and hauled her over to a nearby console. 

A loud crash echoed followed by a screeching sound as Kara and the near-feral Power Girl battled the doppelgänger all over the lab. Green blasts of kryptonite radiation bounced off the walls that were then met with a blast of heat vision fury from Kara. The trio brawled and exchanged earth-shattering blows and for a moment the Kryptonian powerhouses seemed to have gained the upper hand. With the short-haired blonde in the torn faded blue suit beating furiously on the doppelgänger's ever-shifting body while Kara held her blade-like arms behind her back but then her doppelgänger roared and with a blast of concussive kryptonite radiation sent both girls hurtling against the walls before they crumbled to the floor.

“I spent five years killing your kind one by one, you think that you two little blonde bimbos stand a chance!” her doppelgänger roared and slashed through the air with her blade-like arms. In response, Kate pulled out two sword-like Batarangs with a sigh.

“You do your thing Moonshine and I’ll go take care of your evil twin over there,” the Batwoman declared and slashed the Batarangs through the hair. 

“Oh, a Batwoman too! How delightful!” her doppelgänger laughed when Kate stepped up without an ounce of fear on her cowled face.

Looking away from the battle she tried to make heads or tails of the console she’d been propped up against. Her head still hurt like after a night of heavy drinking and it was hard to move let alone think. Plus having only one functioning eye right then didn’t help matters.

“Hope… you there… could really use some help,” she whispered and sluggishly hit a few buttons letting her see a hologram of the outside. 

Superman and J’onn were engaged in a pitched battle with a mechanical horde of what looked like Metallo-type robots while Barry ran around the citadel dismantling its weaponry with the crackle of yellow and red lightning in his wake. Nia, her young and noble friend, and Alex stood back to back blasting with guns and blue oneiric energy at everything that moved. 

“Hope… please… I can’t do this by myself,” she begged and tried to figure out the logic behind her evil doppelgänger’s systems.

Weakly glancing over her shoulder she saw that Kate despite being courageous as hell was overwhelmed and taking a beating. But the Batwoman was defiant and kept getting back up again and again while grinning and spitting blood. Kara and, well, the other Kara were both still shaking off the effects of the kryptonite radiation blast but both blondes looked furious.

“Miss Luthor?” Hope’s voice asked weakly in her head and she felt a spark of hope again. 

“Are you there?” she asked and managed to pull herself to upright at the console as she felt some strength return to her body.

“Operating in safe mode. I had to shut down to avoid the viral attack your counterpart launched against us,” Hope explained, and she could see the data feeds light up in front of her one good eye.

“It will have to do. I need you to analyze the code for me while I…” she started tapping away at the console but then Kate was hurled into it with a loud thud.

“Time to kill another Bat are you watching Kara your little slut is about to die again!” her doppelgänger roared and lunged with two-bladed hands at Kate’s head but then something or more accurately someone slammed into the bitch.

“Get away from my Kate!” the Power Girl roared while using a console that had been ripped up from to floor as a massive make-shift club. The crazed Supergirl slammed it into the doppelgänger again and again with unbridled fury.

Then her Kara joined the fray again. Looking beyond furious and with her eyes glowing almost purple as she grabbed the doppelgänger by one bladed arm and started slamming her from pillar to post all over the lab. But all this display of Kryptonian fury and muscle would all be pointless if the dimensional merger wasn’t stopped.

“Code analysis is complete, Miss Luthor. It would appear that master user input is needed, however,” Hope chimed in her head and she watched as Kara hurled the doppelgänger against the wall, but the bitch was laughing even as she was blasted with the full force of Kara's heat-vision. 

“Stupid blonde Kryptonians,” her doppelgänger laughed and with a snap of her fingers teleported the two blondes away as next to her Kate coughed up blood while trying to get to her feet. 

“Well that was fun, now it’s time to kill another Bat,” her doppelgänger declared with a crazed expression on her warped face and charged Kate again.

“I repeat retinal and biometrics input from master users is needed to reverse the dimensional merger. Interesting development Miss Luthor, your suit is partly operational again,” Hope informed her, and she started forming a plan. On her head-up displays, he could see that she needed the doppelgänger's right eye and left hand to deactivate the citadel. But first, she had to shield Kate. 

With the motors in the suit whirring into life, she moved as fast as she could and placed herself between Kate and the incoming blow. Hopefully, Kara’s new design was strong enough to take at least one hit and she realized that this is what heroes do. They sacrifice themselves for their friends and loved ones, but then a bright voice rang out in the half-ruined lab and it filled her heart with joy and worry in equal measure.

“Mommy, catch!” Lori shouted and with her good eye, she saw the blonde little alien throwing her the sword that her bitch of a doppelgänger had tossed away earlier. 

“Lori!” she called out as she snatched the sword out of the air with a bit of help from Hope and then she caught the incoming blow with her word as the N-th metal nanites in her blood started flowing through her sore body again.

“The disruption signal has been deactivated by unknown measures. We’re fully operational now at seventy-five percent capacity and we have fifteen minutes before the merger is completed. How about we kick this inter-dimensional bitch’s ass?” Hope asked in her head as her doppelgänger stared at her in shocked outrage at her defiance. 

“With pleasure,” she declared while rising to her feet and pushed her doppelgänger away from Kate with the edge of her sword sparking against the bitch's bladed arm. 

With the motors in her suit whirring at full power and the nanites pumping through her blood yet again she pushed the bitch from hell back a step and slashed her sword through the air. For the first time in her entire life, she knew without a doubt who she was. She was Lena Kieran Luthor, she was Hope, she was a friend, she was Kara Zor-El’s fiancée, and she was Lori’s mommy and this bitch had tried to take it all away from her and now she would be made to pay. With a roar of defiance, she charged her doppelgänger as the citadel kept shaking. Fifteen minutes to kick this bitch's ass and save the world. Easy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, is this me having my SuperCorp and eating my Superbat (PowerBat?) cake too? Maybe...
> 
> And holy hell this was a monster chapter to write and edit but I hope you enjoyed it. Those of you that are still sticking with this monster of a fic.


	16. Hope Triumphant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all comes to ahead as Lena goes toe to toe with her mad doppelgänger but she's got friends, she's got family and most importantly she's got a little girl to protect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! I rewrote this thing so many times and this is the version I'm the happiest with!

Lena was pretty sure that this was a bad idea! No this was a very bad idea! No scratch that! This was the worst idea she’d ever had since that one idea where she tried to make a Frankenstein frog for the fifth-grade science fair! Still, it was way too late to back down now and it was the only idea she had. 

The world depended on her. Kara depended on her. Little Lori depended on her and loath as she was to admit it even Kate freaking Batwoman depended on her. Though right now she’d have given anything to have the Batwoman by her side instead of lying in a heap on the floor with Lori hiding nearby.

Dodging a quick succession of slashes from her doppelgänger’s bladed hands and a blast from the kryptonite in her chest, she tried to keep her distance. But, the crazed woman who wore a twisted version of her face, the woman that had spent hours torturing her and left her with one good eye was relentless.

Her evil bitch of a dimensional twin had also morphed her previously black dress into a green and purple Lexosuit and that hunk of kryptonite glowed and pulsed on its chest after each blast. That gave her an idea. Going on the offensive again she closed the distance between them.

Each blow that she parried from her doppelgänger’s bladed hands shook her entire body and each desperate swing of hers that the bitch parried made her arms hurt like she'd joined Kara for a Saturday weight lifting session. But she couldn’t stop. Couldn’t slow down. She had to keep pushing. Buy more time. All she had to do was buy more time for what she’d instructed Hope to do to be completed. 

“You know I've never killed a version of myself before! I'm thrilled that you're a challenge!” her doppelgänger laughed and mocked her.

In response, she took the chance and slashed her across the face, but the cut healed up within seconds and she felt a sharp pain in her arm in retaliation. The bitch as fast too! Stupid Martian DNA and stupid crazy bitch!

“I’m all kinds of impressive! Didn’t you know?” she laughed back at her and spun away from her foe with greenish blood dripping from the tip of her sword.

“Accessing your memories for further data please hold. Keep distracting the inter-dimensional bitch please,” Hope spoke in her head and she gave a tired sigh.

This plan was a longshot, but it had to work! Glancing over at Lori hiding nearby she pushed through the pain in her tired and tortured body and the doubt in her mind once more. Was this what motherhood felt like?

Lunging into contact with her doppelgänger yet again was like entering into an endless car crash. Her sword sparked against those dreadful blades that her doppelgänger had morphed her hands and arms into. But after exchanging a few more blows of her sword's blade against her doppelgänger's bladed arms, both she and her evil bitch of a doppelgänger had realized that they could predict each other's moves almost perfectly.

Almost though meant that she did manage to get a few more good slashes in on her grinning face but earned a few of her own to the shoulders and arms of her suit. Now with both them taking a quick breather she had a moment to check on Hope’s progress, but nope the A.I. in her head still needed more time. Time to play for time Luthor!

Peering out of her one good eye she stared across the short distance between her and her crazed doppelgänger as the world around them tried to shake itself apart at the seams. Behind her was a bruised and battered Batwoman now doing her best to cover a concerned-looking five-year-old Lori. The child that had wiggled her way into her heart over the past few months. The girl who called her mommy.

Outside her friends were no doubt trying to break into the citadel again as per the plan she'd told Hope to inform Kara about through their linked suits and all she had to do was to hold on a little bit longer.

“Kate, can you get up?” she called out without taking her one good eye off her doppelgänger as they measured each other up again.

“Give me… a few seconds,” the stubborn woman that at one point she’d viewed as a rival for Kara’s affections but now viewed as a friend grunted.  
Kate tried to get up, got up onto one knee before her legs gave out and the grimacing Batwoman shook her head.

“You wouldn’t be this nice to her if you knew how she really feels about your little blonde Kryptonian,” her doppelgänger taunted her as the cuts she’d inflicted on the bitch's face and arms closed up before her one good eye.

“Miss Luthor, I hate to ask this, but I need more time. Please keep distracting her.” Hope chimed in her head as she grabbed her sword with both hands and sprung back into action. 

Slashing and parrying with her doppelgänger all over the lab she made use of the flight-tech that her darling Kara had built into her suit, but every time she came close to delivering a decisive blow the bitch would teleport out of the way.  
With the evil bitch appearing behind her she barely managed to deflect the incoming blow by raising her sword above her head. Fencing without depth-perception wasn’t easy and she had to keep reminding herself that this was all a play for time.

Kicking backward she hit the bitch in the shin before she spun around and made sure to position herself between the crazed version of herself and Kate and Lori again. Protect the weak. Protect the innocent. It is what heroes do and she was a goddamn superhero now!

Exchanging a few more two-handed and heavy blows with her crazed doppelgänger but again she could predict her doppelgänger’s moves and in turn, all of her desperate swings were blocked. This hurt like hell but it was also good in a strange way. This meant more time for Hope to finish her little mission and for Kara to get her Kryptonian butt back here!

“You know, I could just teleport you away and kill them and then teleport your precious Kara back here and do oh so many delicious things to her!” her doppelgänger laughed while toying with her as she wiped the blood from her right cheek.

The blade on the end of her doppelgänger’s right arm morphed back into a human hand and she raised it menacingly in front of her. Feeling her skin tingle she knew that her evil counterpart was about to teleport her away as she’d done with Kara and her short-haired and scarred counterpart.

But then nothing happened, and her doppelgänger looked at her hand and then at her in shock. While they had fought, the A.I. that shared her head had been very busy.

Flashing the woman a smirk and raised eyebrow she slashed her sword through the air. Challenging her to come at her again but the bitch had threatened both Lori and Kara and that couldn't be allowed to go unpunished.

“Teleportation matrix disabled Miss Luthor, but I do require approximately ninety seconds more of your counterpart being completely distracted, I am sorry,” Hope informed her with an apologetic tone through the small implant by her ear but she was too enraged that this bitch from hell had threatened Lori and Kara like that to acknowledge that message.

Ninety seconds, suit's power levels falling, her muscles aching and one good eye. Time to do something stupid she would have to apologize to Kara for after this was all said and done.

“Hope! Activate the M-protocols! Kate, shield Lori’s eyes, please,” she then ordered the A.I. in her head and Kate. In response, her power armor kicked into overdrive as Kate shielded Lori with her cape having managed to get back up to one knee.

The suit’s motors whirred to life once more with a loud whine and the hole in her chest that had contained the crest of the House of El sparked and sputtered but then glowed bright like the sun. Bright like the smile on Kara’s beautiful face. Bright like her love for her new family. This might kill her, but not before she made sure that this bitch would remember her. Screw the plan! It was time to bring the pain! To go into that dark place in her soul one last time for all the right reasons.

“Powersuit and nanite failsafes released. M-protocols are in effect,” Hope chimed in her head and she felt the nanites rushing through her blood as the green veins appeared on her face like spiderwebs.

"Oh impressive!" her doppelgänger taunted and mockingly assumed an engarde pose before instantly regretting it.

“Don’t you ever!” she growled and lunged forward driving the point of her sword through bitch’s shoulder.  
Which shocked her doppelgänger because she’d moved at superhuman speeds while leaving a crackling purple blur in her wake. Barry Allen eat your heart out!

“Threaten!” she then roared and twisted the sword in the wound before yanking it out while moving faster still as a splatter of green blood painted the metallic walls. 

“My family!” she went on with her one good eye glowing bright green with the other red with blood and then she kicked her doppelgänger square in the chest with enough force to send her flying backward into the nearest wall.

“Yes!?” she could hear Lori cheering from the safety of Kate’s cape. At that moment she felt the darkness inside of herself vanish and it was replaced with only light and hope.

Then she shot at the wall above where the doppelgänger had fallen with a purple concussive blast from her glove and buried her in an avalanche of rubble. Stalking over with sword in hand because she had to make sure that the bitch was down for the count.

“Hope, are we ready?” she asked and got no reply but instead what greeted her was a green kryptonite blast straight to the chest that sent her hurtling backward through the air. 

Barely managing to engage her suit’s flight-tech to cushion the blow, she landed hard against the metal slab she’d been strapped down on earlier. A jolt of pain shot up her back and she caught up red-greenish blood from the impact.

“You stupid little bitch! My family, this! My Kara loves me, that!” her doppelgänger roared as she rose from the rubble with her broken body shifting and morphing back into its human form and her eyes were glowing frightfully green.

“I killed Superman! The Flash! J'onn Jonn'zz!" Do you think that you could defeat me with that puny sword and that purple pea-shooter on your arm?!” her doppelgänger raged and blasted her again but she managed to throw-up a round purple shield with her free arm to absorb the brunt of the attack.

It was something extra Kara had added to her suit, a hard-light shield, based on one of her old designs. Rao, she loved that blonde dork and Guardian eat your heart out!

The green beams erupting from her doppelgänger’s chest slammed into her purple glowing shield again and again and she bit down hard. Pushing back against the blasts she gripped the hilt of her sword tightly. A little bit longer. She just needed to hold out a little bit longer.

“That’s the difference between you and me, I care! I never gave up hope!” she shouted over the din of the blasts and absorbed another round of furious laser fire with her shield.

“Oh, spare me! Your suit’s ruining on reserve power, the nanites in your blood are killing you and once you’re dead I’m going to bathe in your Kara’s blood! You can't defeat me!” her doppelgänger roared back and unleashed another barrage at her. All according to plan.

“I don’t have to defeat you,” she laughed when the notification from Hope popped up in front of her one good eye and she hefted her sword like a spear.

“You see I have friends! I have a girlfriend! I have a family! And I'm a goddamn superhero!” she shouted triumphantly before hurling the sword straight into the hunk of kryptonite in the bitch’s chest. Fully accepting who she was now and it felt amazing.

The sword hit home! Piercing the volatile kryptonite in the bitch’s chest and distracting her for long enough for her friends to make their grand re-entrance. And for the Hope A.I. to finish its mission. A few more seconds. 

“And I only had to hold out until they were all in position,” she exclaimed and got to her feet with her purple shield dissolving into a cloud of sparks. 

Barely had she said those words when Kara burst in through the ceiling with her eyes glowing nearly purple and with a loud crash her lover landed in her patented power-pose with the muscles in her arms flexing. Kara was glorious to behold with her blonde hair flowing behind her, the engraved Supergirl armor shining brightly and the Kryptonian hero look pissed off 

“No!” her doppelgänger roared while yanking the sword out of her chest and tried to blast Kara but the kryptonite in her chest sparked and the beam fizzled out.

“Oh, did my girlfriend break your fancy toy? Well, my turn! Eat heat vision, you bitch!” Kara declared with a grin and a rapid-fire barrage of heat vision smashed into her doppelgänger again and again.  
Driving her back and making her stagger as her heavily modified body was barely able to keep up with repairing the damage Kara was inflicting. 

“Kara! I mean, Supergirl!” Lori shouted out from the safety of Kate’s cape and Kara flashed the child a smile as three more thuds echoed in the half-destroyed lab when Clark, J’onn and the aptly named Power Girl joined the blonde hero. They all looked a bit worse for wear from having had to fight their way back inside the citadel but they were here.

“Or should I say... our turn?” the blonde hero asked and squared up as the evil doppelgänger stared at them. Feeling fear for the first time in years. 

A burst of yellow and red lightning followed as Barry deposited Alex and Nia by her side and she shared a quick smile with them both. The pair were a bit dirty and their respective black and blue suits a bit scuffed but both were ready for a fight. Holding up her gauntlets she pointed her crackling beam emitters at her doppelgänger. Matching her stance Nia raised her blue glowing hands while Alex cocked both her weapons. It felt good to have friends!

“Hope, how are we looking?” she asked her A.I. companion with a smirk of her own as her doppelgänger looked at them all with rage and confusion in her green glowing eyes while the broken hunk of kryptonite in her chest sparked and sputtered. Then the vibrations in the citadel’s walls stopped and the shaking subsided.

“I have deactivated this facility Miss Luthor thank you for letting me access your memories to do so,” Hope informed her through the doppelganger’s own systems. 

“No!” her doppelgänger roared but then got hit at super-speed by Barry, then by Clark, then by Kara, J’onn and finally Kara’s own counterpart, Power Girl. The short-haired and scar-faced blonde taking the chance to really lay into her tormentor. 

“This is for Alex!” the half-feral blonde roared and punched her demented doppelgänger across the face while she was staggered from the five-sided attack.

“This is for my Kate!” the utterly furious Power Girlshouted and drove her knee into the bitch’s stomach causing her to double over. 

“And this one! Lena! This one is for me!” Power Girl then growled and punched her stunned doppelgänger straight up into the air where Kara caught her and threw her back down to the floor which cracked from the impact.

Not done and also enraged, Kara landed right on top of the crazed woman and stomped on her with both feet before pulling her up by the hair and they were face to face.

“This is for hurting Lena!” Kara spat at the doppelgänger in Kryptonian with utter contempt in her voice before delivering a resounding headbutt which broke her nose in a splatter of green blood.

“This is for taking Lori from us!” the blonde hero followed up with a hard punch to the woman's chest and hurled the now dazed doppelgänger straight into Clark’s waiting fists. Three mighty blows from the Man of Steel sent her doppelgänger crashing into one of the lab's consoles.

“Will kill you all…” her doppelgänger muttered but she was dazed and wobbling now as she tried to pull herself to her feet but Barry raced around her and a series of high-speed punches staggered her further still before The Fastest Man Alive deposited her in front of J'onn.

The Martian only looked at her with a look of contempt and sadness, no doubt seeing the signs of Martian DNA fused within her body. The stoic man shook his head before phasing his hand through her chest and pulling out the cracked piece of kryptonite and crushing it in his fist.

"Kill you... Little Lena..." her doppelgänger drawled before with one last burst of speed her dark reflection tried to rush at her again but both she and Alex unloaded their respective weapons in a flurry of purple energy bolts and gunfire.

“No, no you won’t, you won't hurt anyone else ever again,” Nia snarled and wrapped the doppelgänger up into a cocoon of blue oneiric energy and slammed her to the floor several for good measure. 

With her doppelgänger struggling in Nia’s energy bindings both her and Alex held her struggling counterpart at gun and gauntlet point. Alex’s fingers looked itchy and she allowed the purple energy to crackle all around her hands.

"We've got a nice cell waiting for you underneath StarLabs, right Barry?" Alex asked but before Barry could respond the entire citadel started shaking again and the crazed doppelgänger started laughing maniacally in Nia's blue oneiric bindings. 

“You stupid little worms! I don't need that hunk of kryptonite to kill you all” her doppelgänger laughed as a bolt of red lightning hit her and she burst free of Nia’s bindings sending the young hero stumbling backward.

“Hope, I thought you shut it all down!” she shouted and watched as Barry caught Nia as she fell, as the citadel started crumbling around them. Rushing towards one of the consoles she scooped up her sword and sheathed it on her back in one fluid motion. 

“I did Miss Luthor, but she seems to be now drawing power from the pocket dimension itself,” Hope supplied the answer she already guessed from the console's readouts and she cursed loudly before realizing that Lori was still here being sheltered behind Kate’s cape. 

Red lightning started raining down all over the ruined lab and her doppelgänger floated up into the air absorbing it into her body. No matter how Kara and Clark blasted at her with their combined heat-vision or an unsteady Nia being supported by Barry hurled blue oneiric bolts at her or even how Alex emptied clip after clip into the bitch, she absorbed it all. Running the math, she came up with one answer and Kara was going to hate it! 

“Kara, get Lori and Kate!” she shouted at the blonde hero and for a moment it looked like Kara was going to argue with her, but then the blonde nodded and scooped up Lori. But, before the blonde hero could pick up Kate, Power Girl was there gently picking up the injured Batwoman with that same unreadable expression on her scarred face.

“Yes, run, run you pathetic little insects!” the now empowered doppelgänger laughed as she danced in the air among the crashing red bolts of lightning. 

“Go, get out of here, all of you! I’ll deal with this and join you!” she shouted and waved for them to go as the walls of the citadel blew out and outside, they could see that the pocket dimension was rapidly collapsing.

With the place falling apart she stood her ground and clutched the hilt of her sword in one hand as she got ready to cover her friends’ escape. They’d come to her aid and to rescue Lori and now it was time for her to repay them for that. 

Watching her doppelgänger grow and contort as she absorbed the energies of the dimension itself, she let out a shaky breath and then threw out her arms and unleashed the nanites from her blood. Screaming in agony she watched as a green cloud of N-th metal nanites erupted from her body and she got ready to contain her doppelgänger here by any means necessary.

* * *

After covering the distance from the citadel to the portal, Kara was putting Lori holding at the portal as the pocket dimension kept crumbling around them with no sight of Lena yet. When she heard a loud explosion in the distance she started to really worry that Lena had done something stupid again.

Nearby Power Girl was carrying Kate with a concerned look on her scarred face and she felt Clark pulling at her arm. J’onn and Alex were helping a shaken Nia through the portal as Barry was doing something with the Speed Force to keep it open a little bit longer. 

“I can’t go! Take her,” she said and handed Lori to her cousin before she pulled off her cape and wrapped it around the child.

“Kara… we have to go, Lena has a plan. We have to trust her,” Clark urged her, and Lori pulled at her hand fitfully. The little blond alien didn’t want to let go. 

“She can’t do this alone, I won’t let her,” she said and shared a long and pointed look with her cousin until he gave in and nodded.

“Lori, I’m going to go get mommy, okay?” she asked the child trying to get the blonde little alien to let go of her hand.

“Promise you’ll be back?” Lori asked in a tiny voice with wide blue eyes and gave a little sniffle that made her heart skip a beat.

“Promise, you stay with Uncle Clark okay?” she said, and the child gave her hand one last squeeze before pulling away.

“Uncle Clark?” her cousin asked while looking very confused and she motioned for him to just go with it for now and that she would explain later.

“I’ll come with you,” Power Girl, her doppelgänger from this broken reality, said firmly stepping up next to her after having shepherded a wounded Kate through the portal.

“You sure?” she asked the no longer feral girl who now stood tall and proud like a true Kryptonian.

“My mess to clean up, gave her too many chances, but no more!” the short-haired blonde stated firmly and fixed her torn and tattered cape.

“I’ll keep the portal open as long as I can,” Barry called out as she gave Lori a kiss on the cheek before all put pushing Clark through the shimmering veil that separated this pocket dimension from their reality.

“I’ll be back,” she promised them and with a nod to her twin they took off towards the green and purple maelstrom that was raging in the distance where the citadel had once stood. Where Lena now fought to try to contain her own darkest fears come to life.

Red lightning lashed at them as they weaved in and out between crumbling buildings and only using her X-ray vision could she make out what was going on over the ruins of the citadel. Lena’s doppelgänger’s body had grown to monstrous proportions as it kept absorbing the remains of this world but her Lena, her valiant and amazing Lena floated in the center of a cloud of nanites.

“What is she doing?” Power Girl asked from by her side shouted over the lightning crashing all around them. 

“They’re… fighting over the dimension’s energy. It looks like Lena has tidally locked them together,” she tried to explain it as she looked at the two Lena's across all visible and invisible spectrums of light. 

From what she could tell. Lena was using her N-th metal nanites to siphon off the collapsing dimensions energies and denying them to her doppelgänger but it had linked them together. All in some ploy to buy them time to get out of here without thinking about herself, but she wouldn’t allow the green-eyed genius to do that. She had plans for the raven-haired idiot. Plans that included a long and happy life together for the next century at least.

“Can we help?” the short-haired blonde with the scarred face asked and she looked around and seeing a heavy steel-beam laying among the wreckage on the ground she had an idea.

In the sky above, Lena and her doppelgänger were locked in a titanic struggle. How Lena was even doing what she was attempting staggered belief. Using the N-th metal nanites in her blood she was using their special properties to absorb and store energy, but it was taking a toll on the green-eyed genius. Her injured right eye was bleeding, her black hair stood up on ends and the suit she’d built for her beloved was sparking and sputtering. But Lena Kieran Luthor held fast. Hope held fast!

“We’re going to create a surge. That should break them apart,” she explained and hefted the roughly ten-foot-long steel beam. 

“Got it, I used to be smart too,” Power Girl nodded and together they flew up while holding onto one end of the beam.

The air between the Lenas crackled and swirled with red plasma and lightning. If she could break the circuit Lena had created, the two would be forced apart. Neither Lena seemed to be aware of them instead they kept up their destructive battle.

“On my mark!” she shouted, and her fellow blonde nodded as they drove the steel beam between the two women.

The results were explosive as the break in the current caused a massive blast wave that blew them all away and down to the ground below. Coughing from the dust she scanned around for Lena and found her already standing and defiant.

“I had it!” Lena shouted at her and tried to take to the skies but the flight-tech in the suit was clearly burnt out. 

“What were you thinking?” she shouted back as she rushed toward her beloved if slightly crazy genius.

“I had it! You were supposed to leave, and I was going to collapse the dimension in on her!” Lena shouted and she noticed that the woman’s ears were now bleeding too, and the sound of the explosion had blown out her eardrums.

“And then what?” she asked while looking into Lena’s one good green eye and tried not to get too emotional as her beloved looked down at the ground. The green-eyed idiot genius as she had suspected hadn’t thought about that part. 

“Then what Lena? You can’t keep going around sacrificing yourself! You have a family now, with me and Lori!” she said and reached out to touch Lena’s cheek who gave an embarrassed smile.

“We’ve got to go! My Lena will be back soon she never...” Power Girl shouted as she came running up to them and right on freaking cue Lena’s doppelgänger burst out of the ground. 

The doppelgänger was back down to her human size, but her body writhed and twisted as it tried to regain its shape. They got ready, Lena’s suit was barely functional as she drew her sword, and her face was crisscrossed with green veins as her one good eye glowed with green determination. Power Girl looked shaky but stood her ground with her scarred fists at the ready. Putting up her fists she flashed her heat vision eyes and set her jaw.

“Lena stop this! Please!” Power Girl pleaded as Lena’s doppelgänger assumed the familiar form of Lena Luthor.

“No, I must make it better! I must make it better!” Lena’s doppelgänger shouted back but then a loud crash echoed as the dimension started collapsing faster and faster around them.

“It’s the three of us against only one of you. How do you think this will end?” Lena shouted over the now deafening noise and pulled out her sword again despite barely having the strength to stand.

“I’ve closed the way out despite that red-clad clown's best efforts and now it doesn’t matter how it ends anymore as long as I take all of you with me!” the doppelgänger laughed, and it was clear that she was completely mad by this point

They shared a look. Lori was safe with Clark she knew that much and if she was to go out, she would gladly do so at Lena’s side. But then one last ray of hope arrived with a familiar roar of engines and the sky above them split open. 

“No way!” she laughed and with a blue portal appearing in the sky the Waverider arrived engulfed in what could best be described as flames of hellfire.

“No! Damn you! Damn you Little Lena Luthor!” Lena’s doppelgänger roared and lashed out at Lena with both of her bladed arms but Power Girl moved fast enough to intercept her nemesis.

“I see them! Get in here you dorks!" Sara shouted from the open cargo bay door of the Waverider with Ray and Mick hanging out the door ready to catch them. 

“Yeah move! This place is about to collapse, and Constantine is doing something highly unnatural to keep us here!” Ray shouted as Power Girl struggled to keep Lena’s crazed doppelgänger at bay.

They both hesitated as Power Girl fought to hold back her Lena with a sad look on her face as the crazed woman howled in fury. Even in defeat, this dark mirror of Lena wasn’t giving up without a fight but this Kara, who had lost so much, kept pushing her back. Glancing at them over her shoulder with a wistful smile the scarred blonde gave them a Clark-like wink. 

“Go! Have the life I couldn’t have and tell your Kate that I would have liked to get to know her,” the short-haired blonde called out and then with a powerful blast of super-breath that was like a hurricane she blew them toward the Waverider where Ray and Mick caught them.

“No!” she shouted as she watched from the Waverider as Power Girl lunged at Lena’s doppelgänger one last time and the two fought for the very last time as their world crumbled to ash around them. Exchanging blows even as the pocket dimension faded from view as whatever Constantine was doing stopped working. The last thing she saw of the heroic blonde as her wrapping the evil Lena up in a crushing bearhug and diving into the collapsing singularity that was forming from the pocket dimension's collapse.

* * *

Kara Kent. Kara Zor-L. Or was it Kara Danvers? She still kept forgetting which name it was but she felt at peace with her decision as she held Lena in a bearhug as the ruins of their world collapsed onto them. Watching as the other Supergirl and her very nice and pretty Lena escaped with their friends she smiled. 

Seeing Alex again had been great and seeing her beloved Kate again, even though she'd been awkward as hell, had been something she'd dreamed about forever. 

Now, it was time to end this decade long struggle and she closed her eyes and thought about Alex, Kate, Clark, all of them and how she'd see them soon in Rao's light as Lena disintegrated into dust in her arms still screaming about how she had to make it better. 

Kate I'm coming home...

* * *

The Waverider appeared outside the alleyway in Metropolis with a loud whooshing noise as Lena held a crying Kara in her arms while being only vaguely aware of their friends as they came rushing into the ship. Keeping her one good eye on Kara she stroked the blonde's hair and told her it would all be better and that Power Girl had known what she was doing. 

Watching them were Sara and the Waverider's crew with a sweaty and disheveled-looking Constantine leaning heavily on Ray while drinking straight from a bottle of whiskey. It wasn’t until Lori called out that she looked up from comforting the grief-stricken Kryptonian. Kara was the strongest person she knew but the blonde woman she was going to marry also had the biggest heart in the universe. 

“Mommy!” Lori called out as she jumped down from Clark’s arms, dragging Kara's cape behind her as she ran over to them.

“Mommy why is Kara crying?” the precious five-year-old wrapped up in Kara's red cape asked as the blonde hero looked up and sniffled at the little girl with her blue eyes puffy and wet but unable to speak.

“She's crying because a big hero did something very brave to save us, darling,” she tried to explain to the child what had happened. How do you explain sacrifice like the other Kara's to a five-year-old though?

“Is that why the other Supergirl isn’t with you?” the little girl asked sadly in her small shaking voice and looked around with her curly blonde hair swinging with each turn of her head. 

“Yes, but she was very brave, just like you both were,” Kara spoke up with her voice quivering and pulled them both into a three-way hug.

“She looked so sad! It isn't fair!” Lori declared and extracted herself from the hug with a determined look on her little face as she made her way to the Waverider's still open doors with the cape wrapped around her small frame.

“Lori, darling it’s okay,” she called out after the little girl, but the child’s face was set and there was conviction in those blue eyes.

“No, the other Supergirl was a hero and heroes get happy endings!” Lori declared firmly and turned and ran out of the Waverider somehow blowing past both Barry and Clark as she dodged between their legs.

Running out of the Waverider with Kara's cape flowing behind her the determined five-year-old raced up to where the portal into the pocket dimension had been but now it looked like any other alleyway in Metropolis. 

Sharing a worried look with Kara they raced after the child and found her standing by where the shimmering veil had been and pushing her hand against the air. The Waverider quickly emptied out in pursuit after them. Except for Constantine that was muttering that he'd done his part for the day. 

“What’s she doing?” Kate asked while being held upright by Barry with her cowl down as Lori had her eyes squeezed shut and the air around her outstretched little hand started rippling.

“I think… I think she’s trying to find the other Kara?” she gasped and knelt down next to the little girl and saw that her closed eyes were twitching.

In the files she'd reviewed after first meeting Lori, there had been mentions of the little girl's species sometimes having mental powers along the lines of telepathy, telekinesis or precognition. Yet, she'd assumed that those would manifest later in the girl's life, but it looked like she'd been wrong, a rare thing for her to be.

“Lori, darling what are you doing?” she asked the child sweetly as Kara joined her on the other side of their little girl. Yes, Lori was theirs now even if it wasn't official yet.

“I’m using my brain bits to find the other Supergirl. I broke the glass box the mean lady put me in and maybe I can break the box the other Supergirl is in too!” the child explained hopefully with her eyes still closed and a tiny blue crack appeared in the air in front of them.

“Can... can she do that?” Kara asked, sounding stunned but put her hand on Lori’s to try and help.

“Only one way to find out! Tell us what you need us to do darling?” she asked and joined her hand with Lori’s and Kara’s hands in the air as the blue crack grew wider.

“Think happy thoughts,” the child said with a smile, and they did just that as a family.

For her, it was as always thoughts of Kara smiling that million-megawatt smile of hers, childhood memories of Lex, the smell of cookies on a Sunday afternoon, a clean lab, Christmas lights, and cuddles with Kara. Later Kara would tell her she thought of Krypton, them together eating breakfast, them dancing after one of their dates and thoughts of Thanksgivings with them all gathered together.

Even Hope tried to help by flashing her images in front of her one good eye. Images of her and Kara flying together, her and Nia laughing together as friends, Alex hugging her and J'onn telling her she'd be perfect for Kara. 

Feeling a blue glowing hand on her shoulder she looked up and saw Nia with her mask off smiling down at her as Alex put her hand on Kara's shoulder for support. Slowly their friends and family gathered around them to lend their support.

“It’s working!” Kara blurted out as the tiny portal that Lori had created grew and grew and then a shaking scarred hand reached through it. 

“Grab her!” the blonde hero blurted out and they all grabbed onto the hand together and pulled. But something on the other side pulled back against them.

“Guys help!” she called out and their friends and family rushed in to aid them. Clark, J'onn, Alex, Nia, Barry now without his scarlet cowl, and even an unsteady Kate with the crew of the Waverider.

With all of them pulling together the hand became a blue-clad arm. Then they could see the edge of a torn red cape and then finally the shocked and scarred face of Power Girl herself looking at them through the small portal. The other Kara was somehow still alive!

“Pull!” Kara shouted and they all gave one final pull. The short-haired blonde still wearing her tattered blue suit and a torn red cape popped through the portal as it snapped shut behind her and they all landed in a heap on the ground. With them all laughing they got back to their feet and dusted themselves off. 

“How?” the stunned looking short-haired blonde asked looking around and then up at the blue sky in amazement.

“Heroes get happy endings!” Lori declared with a huge smile and giggled when Kara picked her up from the ground.

“Yes they do! Great job kiddo,” Kara congratulated the little girl and gave her a kiss on the cheek and with a shrug she put her arm over Power Girl's shoulder. It still hurt to move and her busted suit was barely functional but the scared blonde needed someone to lean on.

“The hows don't matter. Welcome to Earth-Prime, Power Girl,” she told the stunned looking blonde who slowly broke out into a huge very Kara-like smile.

Then the scarred blonde saw Kate again and blushed when she gave the now shy blonde a knowing look. Remembering what the blonde had assumed were her last words she grinned, but now this survivor would get the chance to get to know Kate better.

"Did we win, Miss Luthor?" Hope asked in her head and she found herself smiling from ear to ear at that simple question. Yes, they had won. 

Somehow they'd done it. They had rescued Lori. Saved Metropolis. Fought her darkest fear made manifest. Saved this last survivor of a dead Earth. Now looking at Kara bouncing Lori up and down as they did a little goofy victory dance together with Barry and Nia she let out a laugh. Then while she gazed at two most important blondes in her life she knew there was only one more thing to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And one more chapter to go I think! See you all soon!
> 
> Also I wanted to share this from Tumblr
> 
> As a fic writer, I need every reader to know that:
> 
> I don’t care if your comment is coherent. I know what you mean and I love you
> 
> I don’t care if you ramble. I read every word and I love  
> you
> 
> I don’t care if you leave a comment on a fic from four years ago or leave comments/kudos on like ten of my fics in one go. This isn’t IG, pls stalk my AO3. 
> 
> I love you
> 
> I don’t care if you mention the same thing in your comment that four other people have already mentioned. It’s actually really useful to know what resonated with people and I love everyone who takes the time to tell me they liked a particular turn of phrase
> 
> I don’t mind if your comment is super long or just a couple of sentences, i love them all
> 
> I love you


	17. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Kara settle into their well-deserved happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are guys, the last chapter!

The light shined into her left eye and then her right eye. Then again as she tried not to blink before Dr. Alex Danvers wrote something in her notes. Granted, it was a good cover for Kara's sister, the brilliant woman had set up a small private practice were alongside seeing regular patients she specialized in patching up superheroes and yes that included her since she was a superhero now. For Alex, it was a step down from being the Director of the DEO but until they could oust Lex it meant that the gun-toting Danvers sister could keep fighting the good fight and helping their growing group of allies in ways other than shooting things with usual gusto.

"How does it look doc?" Lena asked her not quite sister-in-law with a smirk and pulled the eyepatch back over her right eye. Pirate mommy is what Lori had started calling her lately, while Alex and Nia called her Captain Morgan, and on top of that Kara kept saying aye aye cap’n whenever she asked the blonde for a kiss.

"It's healing nicely, though I want you to wear that eyepatch for a few more weeks," Alex replied and took her blood pressure next by strapping a velcro-strap around her arm .

"Aye! Doctor Danvers," she said in her best pirate voice and that earned her a 'why me' look from the elder Danvers sister.

"How are things at home? Lori settling in alright?" her friend asked making small talk as the blood pressure strap tightened around her bicep, and she found herself smiling.

"It's like everything I thought it would be and also not, does that make sense?" she asked not afraid to sound unsure around people anymore.  
Alex gave her an understanding nod while jotting down her blood pressure and then testing her reflexes by striking a small hammer to her knee which made her give a small grunt of pain.

"Don't be a drama queen Luthor and for the record, Kara won't stop talking about what an amazing mom you are," Alex said now smiling and making a few more notes about her general health.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, it's only been a few weeks!" she blurted out but despite Kara's glowing praise it had been amazing how much their lives had changed.

Being a mom was incredible and she wouldn't change it for the world. Though a few panic attacks had come with her new title, and for those, she now had Kara and Nia to lean on and Kelly too for more professional pep talks twice a month, at three PM sharp every other Tuesday.

In Kelly's words it was alright to feel a bit overwhelmed. Since after the Battle of The Pocket Dimension as Nia had dubbed it, things had moved fast for them all. Pulling all the string she could and with both her and Kara calling in favors they'd gotten the paperwork for Lori's adoption fast-tracked. 

Once the ink was dry the reality of Lori moving in with them had sent both her and Kara into panicked overdrive to get things ready. Though by pooling their many talents they'd managed to get the little girl's room completed in a day and a half. Since you can get a lot done with two super-geniuses and superspeed at your disposal and then the big day had arrived. They'd gathered up Lori's toys, Lego rockets, and clothes from the orphanage and just like that the little blonde alien had become officially theirs.

Shortly thereafter, being an old-fashioned kind of girl at heart, she'd then gotten Kara an engagement ring of a respectable size. Put on her best red suit and got down on one knee on their balcony after dinner one night, eyepatch and all and she'd popped the question, again. Kara had said yes, called her silly and then they'd kissed with Lori cheering them on. But that was just who they were now, Lena and Kara with little Lori, together and always rushing into things and she loved it.

"You two picked a date yet?" Alex asked and helped her down from the examination table as the paper crinkled under her butt before she smoothed down the old pair of worn jeans she'd picked out with Lori's 'help' this morning.

"No, I think Kara would prefer for me to have two functioning eyes at our wedding and I was kinda hoping for a long engagement," she explained and pulled her leather jacket on from the coat rack by the door.

Black Jeans, a white t-shirt and a leather jacket made up her look for the day. One great thing about not have to act like a corporate bitch anymore was that it had given her more freedom in her way of dress. Plus, in Nia's words from when they'd met up for lunch, the leather jacket looked great with the eyepatch. It made her look badass apparently and she took her young friend at her word.

"Getting cold feet? Because I hope you’re going to make an honest woman out of my sister sooner rather than later Luthor," her friend asked and then teased her, and it still felt a little bit weird thinking of Alex Danvers as a friend and drinking buddy.

"Oh I will, but I want to do it right! If that makes any kind of sense, Kara deserves that much," she declared sounding nothing like Lena of a few months ago and that caused Alex to burst out laughing.

"What?" she asked in confusion while Dr. Danvers rummaged her hand through the pocket of her white doctor’s coat looking for something and still chuckling. 

"Lena! My sister would marry you in the Kents barn if you asked! Don't keep her waiting too long is all I am asking, and here take this," Alex said with a grin and wrote her a prescription.

"What's this for?" she asked accepting the note and then frowned at her friend. It was a prescription for One Clue.

“She does have a point, Miss Luthor, Mistress Zor-El would marry you in a building designed to house farm animals,” Hope spoke through a nearby computer and it seemed that both her A.I. and her friend were ganging up on her right now!

"Etu Hope! And Ha-Ha Danvers!" she commented dryly and flicked the piece of paper back at her friend.

"Thank me later, we still on for drinks tomorrow night, right Captain Morgan?” Alex asked and sat down behind her desk with a smug grin on her face.

“Of course, you’re the only one who can keep up with me,” she replied with a smirk of her own and got her small Louis Vuitton purse out.  
She might be dressed as a jeans and t-shirts kind of girl today, but she still had a huge closet full of designer stuff at home and it was a shame to let it all go to waste. 

“Lena, you know I can’t charge you, you are family,” her friend protested but she pulled out a few bills and put them on the desk despite her noble protests. Both Danvers sisters could be noble to a fault but that was part of their charm.

“Consider it an investment in your practice then. Plus, I have to put all that money I had Lex cough up to buy me out of LexCorp to good use,” she chuckled remembering the look on her stupid brother's face after she'd taken him to the cleaners and slid the money towards the white coat wearing Danvers.

“Given any thought to what you want to do next? When you’re not out there being Hope and kicking ass, that is?” Alex asked and accepted the payment reluctantly.

“Not sure, anything I want I guess,” she laughed, and it felt good not being tied down to LexCorp or the Luthor name anymore. These days she was simply Lena and it was freeing.

“I’ll drink to that with you tomorrow,” her friend laughed and a knock on the door sadly meant that their time was up for today.

“See you tomorrow Danvers,” she nodded, and her friend waved her off with a grin as she zipped up her jacket with the leather creaking since it had been hanging unused in the back of her closet since she'd bought it ages ago.

Stepping out on the street, she took a deep breath, fixed her collar and checked the data feeds in front of her one good eye. What was she going to do with several billion dollars and nothing to hold her back? 

To be honest, she’d not thought much about it since returning from Metropolis. A daily and almost normal life with Kara and Lori had taken full precedence and after half a decade of the corporate hustle and doubting herself it felt damn nice to slow down a little bit. Not that things would stay quiet for long knowing her luck.

“There is a robbery in process at 2nd and Lexington, shall we go kick some ass, Miss Luthor?” Hope asked brightly through the implant by her ear and her one good eye lit up a bright green.

“Of course, we’re a superhero after all,” she laughed and ducked into a nearby alley as the black and purple now repaired battle suit flowed over her clothes.

The purple outlined House of El crest glowed proudly in white on her chest and she flexed her fingers in the purple gauntlets. Time to go be a goddamn superhero and hope that her little girl would see her on the news. Making her girls proud, that was what mattered most to her these days she decided with a smile as she took the skies with a loud whooping cheer.

* * *

Across town at the CatCo offices, roughly the same time Lena was taking to the sky, Kara looked down at the diamond ring on her finger as she typed out her article about a topic that was very near and dear to her heart. Adoption. Not so long ago she’d never imagined dating, let alone living with Lena, but here they were living together, engaged and raising a very energetic five-year-old alien who when moody could move things with her brain bits. Interesting times indeed.

Glancing at her phone when she saw it vibrate, she laughed at the message. The message read: Rooftop? I got something to show you! It's cool I promise! Checking that she was not being watched she saved her work and got up and smoothed down her blue and white dress. Then pulling on her light jacket she headed upstairs to the roof and stepping onto the CatCo’s helipad she saw someone very familiar wearing a red cape with short blonde hair looking out at the city.

“Was wondering when I’d see you again,” she said softly and smiled as her alternate-dimensional twin turned around with a grin.

“And I still can’t believe I get to see this all again,” Power Girl replied with a laugh, and they shared a hug before she got to check out the short-haired blonde’s new super-suit.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” she asked while sounding suitably impressed and looked her twin up and down in her new white suit.

Since being rescued by Lori her blonde counterpart had spent most of her time with Kents in Kansas and it had done her good. The formerly skinny and emancipated blonde had filled out under Earth’s yellow sun and thanks to Martha Kent’s cooking. The scars on her face had faded for the most part aside from the one running down her left cheek. Kara Zor-L also known as Power Girl, looked like the picture of health and even her blue eyes weren't as haunted as they'd been not so long ago. 

“It didn’t feel right to go back to the blue, that’s your color and I don't want to confuse people,” her alternate-dimensional twin explained, though in reality, they didn’t really look that much alike.

Kara Zor-L, was for a lack of a better term bustier by far then she was and had broader shoulders and hips that rivaled Lena’s along with the short bob cut blonde hair. The new super-suit she wore was a white full bodysuit with a flap that could zip down at the front. With it, the short-haired blonde wore blue boots and gloves. A short red cape was fastened to one shoulder with a House of El decorated clasp and a blue belt with two pockets sporting the golden House of El crest on the buckle completed the look. 

“White suits you, though Sara might call you a copycat when she sees it. What brought this on though, I thought you wanted to take it easy?” she asked fixing her glasses, and her shorted-haired twin shrugged.

“I couldn't just sit at the Kent farm all day and listen to the world outside pass me by. Yeah my hearing is coming back, no heat-vision yet though,” Power Girl replied with a nonchalant grin and it was inspiring that despite everything she’d been through the woman was still a hero at heart.

That was the other difference between them. While the short-haired blonde was plenty strong and could fly, her long stay in the pocket dimension and run-ins with her twisted and evil Lena had robbed her of many of her other powers and abilities.

“And this desire to see the world outside your window has nothing to do with a certain tattooed cowl-wearing girl in Gotham, right?” she teased her twin who blushed but then grinned.

“Maybe a little, but after five years in that pocket dimension it feels good to be under a blue sky again, you know?” Power Girl laughed and ran a hand through her bob cut hair.

“Fair enough, but give the word and I’ll put in a good word with Kate for you if you want,” she laughed and winked at the clearly crushing woman. It seemed that all Karas had trouble making that elusive first move when it came to the ladies. 

“That won’t be needed, I can get my own dates… I think… it’s been a while... did I use to date?” her dimensional twin protested sounding a bit befuddled and frowned. There were still gaps in the poor woman's memories and it showed at times like these.

“There is no rush Kara, and this is going to get confusing isn’t it?” she asked and shook her head at the fact that they were both Kara Danvers. Though her twin had informed her that she was, in fact, a good five years her senior. 

“Yeah been thinking about that, how does Karen Starr sound?” Power Girl asked with a grin and pulled out a pair of thick-rimmed glasses from one of the small pockets on her belt.

“You don’t have to do that! I mean you’re Kara Zor-L and you have every right to the name,” she said as it was her turn to protest and held up her hands not wanting to appear pushy.

“No, it’s alright, you’re this world’s Kara Danvers and I need a fresh start after what my... no, after what Lena put me through,” her twin said with her smile fading and on impulse, she hugged the girl again feeling herself being gratefully squeezed in return.

“You been doing those remote sessions with Kelly, right?” she asked once they'd hugged it out, and her alternate-dimensional twin nodded.

“Yeah, they’ve helped, but tell me how is Lena doing? Oh, and that adorable little girl who pulled my behind out of that singularity?” her twin asked, and she didn’t mind changing the subject if it meant distracting the brave blonde.

“Well, for starters, I live in an apartment full of Lego rockets and science experiments now! Let’s just say that Lena not working has left her with a lot of free time and Lori is just the best,” she laughed and shook her head like she didn't quite believe that this was her life now, but Rao, she freaking loved it.

“How… how does it feel to be a mother?” her twin asked, sounding wistful and she had to think for a moment before answering that thorny question. Right now Lena was Mommy and she was Kara. Though her wife-to-be and Eliza had both told her that Lori would call her mommy or mom when she felt ready. 

“It’s scary, but fun,” she settled on as her answer and felt herself smiling at the mere thought of going home after work to spend time with her girls.

“And is that the ring? Rao it's massive!” her twin declared pointing at the diamond ring on her finger and she couldn’t resist showing it off a little bit.

Though it made her give an awkward blush. Lena had really gone overboard with the ring in her honest opinion, but the raven-haired beauty had looked freaking adorable down on one knee on their balcony in that old red suit that she had felt compelled to accept the silly gesture.

“Yep, but I told Lena I didn’t need a ring but no she was dead set on making an honest woman out of me I guess,” she laughed and then both of them picked up the sound of trouble from across the city.

“Should we?” Power Girl asked but she listened a bit longer and heard the telltale sound of an armor-wearing Lena flying through the sky. Hope was on the case.

“Hope’s got it! Listen, I’m going to go back to work since I'll no doubt end up reporting on this, but you can go help her out if you want or you know fly over to Gotham. Kate should be awake soon,” she said, having full faith in her wife-to-be to save the day but unable to resist teasing her alternate-dimensional twin. 

“You know, I think I’ll take this new suit out for a spin first,” her twin laughed nervously at the mention of Kate, and they shared another hug goodbye.

“Knock them dead, Power Girl,” she laughed and patted her twin on the back who smiled. Though she was more like an older sister, come to think of it, and having two of those wasn't a bad thing. 

“And you get back to work Miss Danvers,” her Kryptonian sister joked in her best Clark-voice and gave her one of those same winks her cousin often gave before taking off toward downtown National City.

Walking back down to her desk she texted Kate a quick warning It was only fair that she give her her friend a heads-up that Power Girl was out and about. _Be nice to her!_ She texted with an avalanche of suggestive emojis. But it was good to see that her dimensional sister was getting back to her former self in some small way. 

Opening up her laptop again she went back to work on her article and decided she’d pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner for her two little rocket scientists on the way home later. This life, though not what she'd expected a year ago, was pretty great!

* * *

After a quick and enjoyable team-up with Power Girl, the girl was so much like Kara but in other ways not, Lena landed on the balcony of the apartment she now shared with her two favorite blondes and the first thing she smelled when she stepped into their apartment and deactivated her helmet was rotisserie chicken and french fries. 

Then she was tackle-hugged around the waist by the world's most energetic five-year-old. One Lori soon to be either Luthor or Danvers but they hadn't quite figured that part out yet.

“Mommy you’re home!” Lori declared with her curly blonde hair in two messy ponytails while wearing a blue Supergirl t-shirt and red leggings.

“Hey sweetheart, did you have a good day?” she asked and picked up her little ball of energy as the motor's in her suit hummed quietly.

“School was great, but it’s so slow! And boring!” the little girl bemoaned with the ridges on her nose wrinkling.

“I know! It was boring when I was a kid too! How about we do some chemistry experiments after dinner then?” she offered and walked into the kitchen where Kara without her glasses on and in a blue and white dress wearing an apron that said Trophy Wife was laying the table.

“Yay! And I saw you on TV mommy! You and the other Supergirl were so cool!” Lori declared while punching the air with her little fists as she sat her down at the dinner table.

“She’s called Power Girl, don't you remember sweety? And no Kryptonian battle armors at the dinner table, you know the rules,” Kara said and pointed a fork at her before cutting the chicken up. Kara as a homemaker was hot!

“Yes dear,” she said in Kryptonian and deactivated her armor and it melted away before she took off her jacket while Lori was recounting the fight she'd watched on TV earlier.

"And then you blasted them with your purple rays and it was like pew-pew! And Power Girl was like rawr!" the blonde five-year-old shouted while mimicking ray blasts with her hands before flexing her muscles and she couldn't fight back the laughter that bubbled up from deep inside her chest.

“Dinner first, fight reenactments later," Kara told Lori sweetly, and to her amazement the child obeyed. Then the blonde gave her a once over look and she knew she was being X-rayed to make sure that she wasn't hurt.

"What did Alex say about your eye?” Kara asked satisfied with her not having been injured this time around and put a plate in front of her after kissing her on the cheek. This felt nice.

“A few more weeks, but she says it’s healing nicely,” she said and lifted up the eyepatch to show the blonde how it looked.

“Good, I miss your beautiful green eyes,” Kara said sweetly with a grin and kissed her again on the lips this time before plating up Lori’s dinner.

“Can I be a pirate for Halloween mommy?” Lori asked and wiggled around in her seat impatiently waiting for her dinner while mommy and Kara made kissy faces again.

“I thought you wanted to be Supergirl for Halloween?” she asked and waited for Kara to take her seat. 

"Yeah what happened? We were all going to be big superheroes together, remember?" the blonde asked flexing her niceps, but they'd both learned early on that the blonde child they'd adopted liked to change her mind with every new idea that popped into her little head. 

“That was last week! Now I want to be a pirate so me and mommy can match!” the five-year-old declared pointing at her eyepatch and that made Kara laugh and ruffle the blonde girl's hair. Kara was a sucker for this little girl and it was adorable.

“We’ll be a pirate crew then! Arr! Now, eat up you two,” Kara laughed and loaded up her plate to the brim. Homemaker or not the blonde still did have National City’s most bottomless stomach.

“Yes mom,” Lori said dutifully before digging into her plate with gusto and the stunned look on Kara’s face was priceless as it made her grin.

“She called me mom,” Kara mouthed at her while almost bouncing in her seat and she reached out under the table and squeezed the blonde’s hand feeling the engagement ring against her palm. This wasn't a dream or a simulation this was her wonderful reality now.

“You okay mom?” Lori asked since they'd both gone quiet and looked up at them from where she was scarfing down her meal. A habit the child had picked up from Kara on day two.

“I’m… I’m perfect sweety, just keep eating your dinner okay,” Kara said with her voice breaking a little bit and squeezed her hand back with a slowly blooming smile on her face that reached from ear to ear as those blue eyes sparkled.

“Grownups are weird,” Lori declared and turned her attention fully back to her dinner as they watched their little girl trying not to laugh too loud.

Whatever the future might bring, this was perfect like Kara had said. The three of them being a little family enjoying dinner together at the end of the day. So, what if they were two aliens and a human or two superheroes and a kid or two idiots and an adorable bundle of joy. 

These two adorable blondes were her girls and she’d fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. The old Lena had never dared dream of this, but here she was. Engaged, a mom, a superhero and most of all happy. Only one more thing left to do.

* * *

A few months later.

Alex Danvers looked back at her sister and poor Kara looked like she was about to pass out. As her little sister's maid of honor, she felt like she should say something encouraging but then the music hit, and they were off. Leading the way down the aisle she could see Lena nervously fixing her bowtie and smoothing down her black fitted tuxedo. She felt a little bit bad for her friend and who would have thought that they'd be friends at the start of all this. 

Next to the raven-haired woman stood a dutiful Nia in a black dress, the young hero who had been an unexpected choice for the role of Lena's best woman and the girl was whispering something to Lena. Most likely it was something along the lines of stay calm and stop fixing your damn bowtie already woman! 

Taking her place at the white flower-strewn altar she kept one eye on the groom sort to speak just to make she wouldn't bolt and then an aww went up in the small church as Lori came down the aisle taking her role as flower girl very seriously. 

The girl looked very proud in her puffy white dress with a red cape attached to it. Flower Girl was a superhero you see, like her moms! The blonde little alien was all smiles as she spread white flowers down the aisle and returned Barry's thumbs-ups as she prepared the way for Kara's grand entrance. 

“Relax,” she mouthed at Lena and she’d never seen the woman look so nervous, but it wasn’t every day you marry into the Danvers-Zor-El clan. Lena gave her a grateful smile and nodded before squaring her shoulders and standing up a bit straighter.

Glancing out over the small but packed church she could see their gathered friends and family. Clark and Lois with their boys. Eliza, Brainy, and Kelly who waved at her mouthing something along the lines of you’re next Danvers. Barry and Iris with their motley crew from StarLabs. Sara holding hands with Ava. 

The White Canary looked happy and amazing she had to admit and although she was in a relationship she was by no means blind. The rest of the crew of the Waverider safe for Constantine who stood at the altar in his least crumpled suit all looked hungover from the night before. Jefferson with his two girls and his wife were there too. and finally, Kate and the other Kara now going by Karen awkwardly sitting with one empty seat between them, but the pair weren’t fooling anyone. Even Cat Grant had shown up with her son Adam and she spotted Sam and Ruby as well as some of their alien allies. 

Here Comes The Bride started playing and if not for Nia’s hand on Lena’s shoulder the poor woman might have fallen over. Kara entered barefoot in a white Kryptonian inspired dress, holding a small bouquet of white roses with a golden circlet around her head that kept her blonde hair up before it fell down in ringlets around her shoulders. Next to her sister's was a spiffy looking J’onn in his tuxedo and the Martian looked like he was about to burst with pride as he escorted his space-daughter down the aisle.

Kara was beaming like the sun and she’d never seen her sister this happy before as the blonde took her place at the altar. Lena looked a bit paler than usual however as Lori took her seat in the front next to her Uncle Clark. Constantine cleared his throat to settle the crowd down. The foul-mouthed Brit was serving as the minister for this occasion since in his own words. He was the most spiritually qualified among them all to marry the two bloody idiots and make it stick.

For her and no doubt for Kara and Lena too the ceremony passed by in a blur, but it went off without a hitch though and the two dorks kept smiling at each other through it all. Rings and “I dos” were exchanged with Kara’s being so loud in her declaration of: "I DO!" that it shook the church a tiny bit which made Lena burst out laughing before getting herself back under control. 

“I now proclaim you Mrs. and Mrs. Danvers! You may kiss each other and make it a bloody good one, eh!” Constantine declared in his thick British accent and Lena now a Danvers wasted no time following his suggestion. Though she was watching her sister being kissed quite sloppily there was something sweet about how a grinning Lena tipped a surprised Kara down deep and kissed her firmly on the lips with Lori cheering her moms on before all three of them walked back down the aisle.

* * *

Lena Kieran Danvers, or Lena Zor-El if you felt fancy, walked up to where Kara Danvers, also known as Kara Zor-El, her dorkasaurus of a wife, was carefully sticking a piece of strawberry into the chocolate fountain with her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth for optimal chocolate coverage and she hugged her newly minted wife from behind. 

Kara, still in that simple but elegant white dress had put on a pair of white slippers to dance in and still had her blonde hair pulled up with that golden circlet while she’d lost her tuxedo jacket and undone her bowtie along with the top buttons of her shirt as the night had gone on. Leaving her in only the pants, shirt and a red cummberbund. Kara had insisted that she not lose that tuxedo, however, because the blonde had plans for the next time Lori would have a sleepover at auntie Alex's house. 

Speaking of their little blonde troublemaker, she was busy nearby, where she was using her burgeoning powers to try and nudge Kate and Karen closer together where the two heroes stood by the punch bowl making awkward small talk and it was adorable, if a bit evil, of the little blonde to do that. 

The Waverider crew were drunk as skunks already again and dancing on the tables where Cat Grant and Lois had joined them with Clark shaking his head at the wild woman he’d married. 

Kelly and Alex had vanished somewhere private after Kelly caught the bouquet that Kara had all but hurled into her arms with enough force to knock the woman backward and Barry and Jefferson were doing party tricks with lightning and speed to entertain their friends and families. Finally, she saw that her friend, Nia had a firm hold on Dox as their oddly paired couple danced to the music.

“Dance with me?” she whispered into the blonde’s ear and that earned her a giggle as the taller woman turned around.

“Here in front of people?” Kara asked feigning innocence and gave a mock shocked expression but not before popping the chocolate covered strawberry into her mouth.

“Well we are married,” she laughed and wrapped her arms around her wife’s neck before allowing herself to be lifted up from the floor slightly.

“Oh yeah I forgot,” Kara laughed and started slowly moving to the music while holding onto her waist.

“Rao! I married such a dork!” she laughed and tightened her grip around her blonde wife’s neck as they glided onto the dance floor.

“But an adorable dork, right?” her blonde and yes adorkable wife asked hopefully and looked down at her with those baby blues sparkling and a big smile that rivaled the sun in its brightness.

“The most adorable and cutest dork in the universe,” she assured her wife and in return got lifted up and spun around with Kara laughing and cheering.

“Hey! I want to fly too!” Lori proclaimed at seeing them having fun and came rushing over having only managed to nudge Kate an inch or so closer to Kara's dimensional sister. Reaching down, Kara picked the blonde child up with one arm and the three of them danced together long into the night or until Lori gave a big yawn and had to curl up one of the chairs for a nap. Life was perfect for the newly minded Danvers family she decided and reached up to kiss Kara on the lips again. Yes, Kara was incredible and this was incredible! 

  
**THE END**

****

* * *

**Epilogue: A Different Life**

Somewhere else... in the past…

Kara walked through the DEO base looking around at everything with wide blue eyes. This felt very weird, but Alex swore that these guys were legitimate and only wanted to help her do better as Supergirl. Then a green-eyed girl coming toward her caught her eye. Wearing a form-fitting black spy-suit a pale-skinned girl with raven-dark hair in a tight ponytail was walking with an armful of parts and tools. 

Being a bit taken back by the girl’s appearance for some reason she, of course, walked straight into the poor girl sending parts and tools flying everywhere and she panicked. Dropping down on her knees she started gathering up the spilled parts while apologizing profusely.

“I’m so sorry, here let me get those for you, I’m…” she blurted out as she moved at super-speed to gather the spilled parts up.

“You’re Supergirl, I know and it’s alright, this place can be a bit intimidating,” the girl spoke a husky voice that made her ears tingle. Looking up she could see that she looked to be about her own age, and she was chuckling with a smirk on her red lips.

“Again, I’m so sorry, agent?” she asked, getting to her feet and handing the admittedly petite agent an armful of parts and tools. Stop staring, Danvers! She reminded herself but again found herself glancing at the front of the girl’s spy-suit.  
Hold on since when do I like cleavage? Maybe since forever, in denial much Zor-El?

“Agent Kieran, it’s nice to meet you,” the agent introduced herself and stuck out a pale hand from underneath the pile of parts of tools she was now holding again.

“Nice to meet you too, Agent Kieran,” she said with a nervous laugh shaking the offered hand.

“Supergirl over here!” her sister called out while waving her over and she flashed the agent a smile.

“See you around?” she asked and realized she was still shaking the woman’s hand while grinning like an idiot.

“I look forward to it, uh can I have my hand back?” Agent Kieran smiled at her with a raised eyebrow which made something go click in her head and she dropped the woman’s hand like it was made of Kryptonite.

“Oh sure, sorry again, I uh got to go,” she lamely excused herself and glanced over at where Alex and Hank were impatiently waiting for her to finish up being a total klutz.

“No worries, I’ll be around,” the cute Agent offered with a confident smirk. Wait, cute agent! Where did that come from? 

“Great!” she giggled nervously and side-stepped the pale-skinned agent with Alex giving her a weird look from across the room. Then when she looked over her shoulder to say something more Agent Kieran was gone. Maybe the DEO wouldn’t be so bad after all…

**THE END...?**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Couldn't resist doing a bit more dimensional shenanigans at the end, but it's a take on that comment J'onn gave Lena about how she'd made a good DEO agent and I might do a spin-off about Agent Kieran and Supergirl down the line. I
> 
> I want to thank all of you that have been reading and commenting on each chapter. It has helped me power through self-isolation, writers' block, doubts about my own talent and many other things. A few shout outs to those who have joined me on this journey: Leapyearbaby29, TheGreat71, doritos79, Knightlyjay, psychobubuzuke, maree_gabriela, mercy_fo, Irishmegs88 and many more who commented, gave kudos and bookmarked. Thank you once again for sticking with this monster of a fic!
> 
> Could I have kept writing? Yes, but I felt like this was a good place to put an end on this story. Knowing me I'll revisit these two versions of Lena and Kara down the line but I want to take a bit of a break now. I've been struggling with writing for the past month or so due to the world being very weird. Look for some shorter stuff from me in the next few weeks as I take a much needed break, or who knows I might snap and do another monster like this!
> 
> Thank you for reading and I love you guys!


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